Kol's Horsemen
by Lynyrd Lionheart
Summary: They managed to fight their way back from the other side, but it came at a price. Now, as the darkest versions of themselves, they will rain blood and pain across the country and right into the heart of New Orleans. They have a grudge, and its target is the city's king. Post S5 TVD and S1 TO. Klaroline, Kalijah, Carenzo.
1. Prologue

**AN: This is based off a gif set created by the tumblr user Adelindschade. She gave me permission to write it, and I'm really excited! Please enjoy…**

**Prologue: Like a perky blonde angel of death**

The man walked into the bar like he owned it.

It immediately set Klaus on edge. New Orleans was _his_ town, _his _kingdom. He had paid in blood and with his daughter, and now some stranger came walking in as though none of that mattered, as though he owed no respect to the King of the city.

Klaus had cut off his conversation with Marcel, Elijah and Hayley to watch the man saunter up to the bar, and the other three all looked to see what had so grasped the Original Hybrid's attention.

"Who is that?" Hayley asked, her eyes flashing yellow for a moment, her fangs cutting into her lip, if her wince were anything to judge by. She had yet to learn to control her new vampire urges, urge made infinitely stronger by the innate rage of the wolf. "Is he a danger?"

"I don't know," Klaus replied, watching the new vampire. "I've never seen him before."

Klaus couldn't say exactly what it was about the man that set him so on edge. It wasn't just that devil-may-care attitude. There was something… _off_ about him. Something other. He was a vampire, but it were as if he were something _more_.

As though he heard their conversation – _not possible, they'd been speaking too quiet for even a vampire to hear_ – the man turned toward them. He caught Klaus' eye, and raised the glass the bartender had delivered in a mocking toast.

"Does he have a death wish?" Marcel murmured, and Elijah hums softly in agreement, but Klaus knew that his brothers eyes were on him, not Marcel or the stranger. Klaus, however, was focused on this stranger who is _other_ with the mocking smile. He pushed his chair back. He felt when Elijah and Hayley fell in step with him but ignored them otherwise.

Klaus took the seat next to the stranger, who accepted a second drink from the bartender.

"Niklaus Mikaelson," the man said in a smooth accent. "King of New Orleans and Hybrid Extraordinaire. I have heard a lot about you."

"Funny," Klaus remarked leaning against the bar and waving for a drink. "Because I can't say I know who you are."

"Me? Oh, I'm no one, really. The dark horse, a mere messenger" – the man tossed his drink back once more and got to his feet – "my message is simple really. Prepare yourself, Niklaus. You and your whole Kingdom."

"Prepare ourselves for what?" Hayley demanded, her eyes flashing yellow again as she bared her fangs at the stranger. He just looked at her, his expression bored and unimpressed.

"Hayley, the traitorous wereslut, I presume? I expected something… _more_. Hmmm," the man hummed thoughtfully, eyes still focused on Hayley, before he finally shook his head and got to his feet. "Put it on his tab" – he nodded his head at Klaus, and the bartender looked between the two men with fear before scurrying away, leaving the man to turn back to the group – "as for what you need to prepare yourself… it's the end of the world, m'dear, and I get to be its herald."

Klaus prepared to leap at the stranger, but the other man predicted an attack and moved in a flash, grabbing Klaus' head and slamming it into the bar top, then shoving him back towards Elijah and Hayley. By the time Klaus regained his bearings, the man had made his escape, leaving nothing in his wake but the echo of his ominous words.

_It's the end of the world, m'dear, and I get to be its herald._

(KH)

_The White Horseman_.

It was a moniker that gave Caroline amusement. It usually followed Enzo's favorite way of describing her – _Perky Blond Angel of Death_ – and in the past month Caroline had done nothing if not live up to the name. Both of them.

After all, finding a way back from the Other Side had been easy. Finding a way to _stay_ here? That had required a lot of bloodshed. Some of it necessary, other… not so much.

She knew that Enzo was gone to the bar Klaus regularly haunted to deliver their message. Really, it was Kol's message. But it was far too melodramatic for Caroline. She preferred her messages to leave an impression, and to be a lot more bloody.

She wondered if her plan would earn her a one way trip right to hell when she eventually died again – and she _would_ die again. Caroline had learned that no one, not even an immortal, lived forever. They all had an expiration date, and she had already cheated hers twice. It wouldn't happen a third time.

She was sure it would – earn her a trip to hell. But at this point? There was no way she would go anywhere else anyway. Caroline's first death had occurred with a whimper, she was determined a second one would only occur with a bang. And what she had planned would be one hell of a bang.

She took the steps slowly, one at a time. When she reached the large, arched doors of the church, she shoved them open easily. The only light was cast by candles and the moon that shone through the open door. A pretty blonde was kneeling at one of the pews, and she turned around when she heard the doors open.

Pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes and a pulse that marked her as human. Caroline had been human once. Then she had died and awoken a vampire, only to die again and be granted a third chance as something so much _more_.

Something so much _darker_.

_Every spell cast comes with a price. Are you sure you want to pay the price of this one?_

She hadn't been, when she had first discovered the price. But there had been no other option. It was either pay the price, or be lost to the abyss. They knew now, what was in the abyss. Darkness had seemed a far better option that what was hidden in the darkness beyond the Other Side.

"Who are you?" the blonde asked, cutting into Caroline's reminiscence. She quirked her head and looked at the girl, and wondered how it was that she could be so much older than Caroline, yet seem so much younger.

"You're asking the wrong questions," Caroline replied, maintaining her unrushed pace as she walked down the aisle of the church, the click of her heels muffled by the carpet, but still echoing in Caroline's ears. "Knowing who I am won't save your life, Camille."

"I'm on vervain," Camille warned, getting to her feet and backing away from Caroline. "And I have a stake."

"Because telling me what you've armed yourself with isn't foolish _at all_," Caroline drawled out, and she smiled at the other blonde, letting her fangs fall and her eyes darken. "I used to be a lot like you. I used to look for the best in people, I used to fight for my friends, believed they were everything."

"What happened to change that?" Camille replied, her eyes wheeling around desperately for a way out as she sought to distract Caroline. She almost rolled her eyes at the attempt, but in the end she simply smiled and flashed ahead. She snapped the wrist that reached for the stake, and Camille screamed out in pain.

"I died," Caroline replied, lifting Camille and throwing her. Her back hit the altar at the front of the church hard, but Caroline had to give her props. The other blonde was a fighter, wouldn't give up easily. She tried to get to her feet, but Caroline was already there, straddling her and pinning her down. "I feel bad for you, Cami. You really don't deserve this."

"Then why do it?" Camille replied, struggling against Caroline's grip futilely. "You don't have to. You can let me go."

"Oh, but I can't. You see, I need to send a message. I suppose there _are_ others I could do… but I already agreed not to touch Hayley, and you? Oh, I do love the symmetry of you, Camille."

Caroline smoothed the other girl's hair back.

"Please…" Cami whispered, but there was no mercy in Caroline's fathomless black eyes.

"You're more of a fighter than I expected. I was too. And that's why I'll make it quick. I wasn't planning to before. I planned to make it long, torturous… but you impressed me Cami."

There were tears running down Cami's cheeks, soaking into her hair, and Caroline reached her fingers out, grazed them over the wet streaks as though surprised to see them.

"Oh yes," she said, her voice incredibly soft, her gaze focused over Cami's shoulder now, not really even paying attention to the blonde anymore, not really. In her mind, Cami was already dead. "I do love the symmetry of you."

Then, she tightened her grip in Camille's hair and twisted hard, the loud snap of her neck echoing in the quiet of the church. The light quickly fled Camille's eyes, the life and fire that had existed there fading as quickly as her neck had been snapped.

Caroline got to her feet and contemplated the body, then turned her contemplation to the altar. She didn't like melodramatic… but plain, old drama? Oh, she thrived on that.

Smirking wickedly, Caroline hefted the body and set about preparing her message.

**AN: First things first… I am obviously still working on **_**Conversations with Myself**_**. But I saw this gif set and I knew I wanted to write it. This is going to be a dark story. More gruesome and violent than **_**Still Doll**_**. This was also posted over on tumblr for Day 3 of Caroline Appreciation Week (favorite quote)… which is obviously where the prologue chapter came from. **


	2. Lost in all of our vices

**AN: The prologue had a spectacular response, so thanks guys! Here is the first real chapter. We hop back in time, to before the prologue for this, and find out how Caroline died, and how they came to return to the land of the living. Chapter title comes from Bastille's song "Pompeii" and their "All this Bad Blood" album is basically the soundtrack of this story.**

**One. Lost in all of our vices**

Caroline Forbes was not a stranger to death. In fact, this was her second time experiencing it.

The first time she had been reborn a vampire.

This time, she thought it might end up being permanent.

"That was a rather nasty way to go. Not much by the way of dignity in that end, was there?"

Caroline didn't reply at first. She thought, perhaps, if she ignored him, Kol might simply disappear. She hadn't had much to do with the youngest Mikaelson brother – her only interaction with him had been when he'd invited her to have a drink with Klaus and him – but what she knew of him told her he wasn't her type of person. So, she ignored him and stared at her body.

It was mangled, the throat torn out.

By her ex-boyfriend.

Or at least the Traveller inhabiting his body.

"You can ignore me all you want, Darling, but that won't make you any less dead."

"Where is Stefan?" she finally asked, because while she would prefer to ignore him, she had come to the other side, only to find that Stefan wasn't there. He should be there. Tyler's possessed body had killed him as well, after all.

Kol didn't say anything, and Caroline finally whirled toward him, because she may not have interacted with him much, but she did know that silence wasn't his style.

He was watching her with a critical expression, surveying her up and down as though trying to determine her worth.

Or perhaps how she would handle whatever he was about to say to her.

"He's gone, Gorgeous."

Another accented voice, once again familiar. Because dealing with accented jerks in her life wasn't enough, now she had to be surrounded by them in death as well.

And wait… did he say Stefan was _gone_?

"Gone?" she demanded, whirling around to look Enzo dead in the eye. His expression was solemn, not at all like the usual infuriating smirk he wore around her, and it made her throat grow tight. Because he should be smirking and calling her Blondie, but instead he just watched her with serious eyes and Caroline _couldn't breathe_. "What do you mean gone? This is the Other Side. You can't just… _disappear_."

"It's all falling apart, Darling. And more and more of us are being sucked up by it. Your friend Stefan was one of the victims of the Abyss."

"The Abyss?" Caroline asked, and her lips felt numb as she spoke, because this couldn't be happening. Stefan couldn't be _gone gone_. Not Stefan. Not her best friend.

"It's what we call it. Since we don't actually know what's there, Abyss seemed appropriate," Enzo replied. He had stepped closer to her, his hand hovering over her shoulder, as though he wanted to offer her comfort but didn't know how. Considering how long he had spent in captivity, Caroline realized that it was possible that was exactly the case.

But she didn't want his comfort. She wanted Stefan.

Stefan who was gone.

"Maybe… maybe it's better. Whatever this place, that they're getting sucked to… maybe it's better. Maybe we would be better off there."

Caroline's eyes darted around, as though she could somehow magic herself a way to see into the Abyss, to see if everyone who had been taken there was happier. If there even _was_ anything there. Or had Stefan been sentenced to an eternity of … nothing?

"Don't be a fool, Goldilocks," Enzo said, his voice serious, and this time his hand made contact with her shoulder, a heavy presence there. It was comforting, even though Caroline didn't want it to be, didn't want to be comforted by _anyone_, let alone Enzo. "Following Stefan into the Abyss… you won't be happy there."

"You don't know that," Caroline replied, turning burning eyes on him. "You have no idea what's there-"

"It doesn't take a genius to know that it's nothing good… Caroline, right? The one Nik was so obsessed with. Looks like he discarded you as he does all of us that no longer benefit him. If we survive this, we should start a club," Kol drawled out, leaning against the parking barrier and watching them with that same critical gaze. "You may not be a genius, but you're certainly no fool. So put any thoughts of following your Salvatore into the Abyss away, because that's all they are – foolish."

"We're dead, so there won't _be_ any surviving this. And it sounds like the Abyss is our inevitable fate, anyway. So why not simply let go?"

Kol straightened and strolled toward Caroline and Enzo, who was still holding her shoulder. He paced around the pair, his gaze making her feel as though he were looking into the very heart of her, and it made her feel uncomfortable.

"There's a way," he said at last. "To get back to the land of the living… for us to be living again."

"We weren't living to begin with," Caroline pointed out, but her interest was piqued, and she quirked her head, watching him through narrowed eyes. "But I'm listening."

"Wonderful, because it requires us going into the Abyss."

Confusion. Two seconds ago he was saying following Stefan into the Abyss was foolish, and now he was saying it was the key to getting back to the land of the living?

"But you just said-"

"Following Stefan _would_ be foolish, Caroline" – Enzo's use of her actual name caught her attention. She wasn't sure that he had ever used it, beyond their first meeting, and it emphasized how precarious their current situation was – "but what Kol has planned… well, we wouldn't be dragged into the Abyss unprepared. We would walk in, eyes wide open and a plan in place."

"How does Kol know so much about this?" Caroline demanded, turning her suspicious gaze to the Original, who had been watching them in silence. When her narrowed gaze landed on him, Kol lifted his hands in a mockery of innocence, his expression far too sweet to mean anything good.

"My mother was a witch, Darling. And I've made other witch friends in my many years of life. I know things, and I've been gathering gossip here since this realm began to fall apart. We can get out of here… but we require help from a Traveller."

"A Trave – _please_ tell me you're not thinking Silas? Because we dealt with psycho already, and I'd rather lose myself to this Abyss than do that again."

"I died trying to prevent Silas entrance to our world if you recall," Kol drawled out, and Caroline thought his smirk might be even more irritating than Enzo's. "I would hardly assist him in getting there again. No, there is a reason we needed _you_ in particular for this little escape mission… well, your Salvatore would have actually worked as well, but Enzo there wanted _you_ and then Stefan was lost to the Abyss, so it ceased to be an option."

Caroline's eyes darted quickly to Enzo, who looked uncomfortable in the wake of Kol's statement. He met Caroline's gaze and shrugged uncomfortably, his eyes darting away.

"You're young," he said. "You deserve a second chance."

Caroline didn't believe that for a moment, but accepting it seemed the safer option, otherwise she'd start to ask _why_, and why always led to tragic backstories and dead puppies and that would make her feel sorry for him. And Caroline did _not_ want to feel sorry for Enzo. Pity was the first step towards grudging acceptance, and then suddenly you're being screwed against a tree in the forest.

Been there, done that, wrote the book.

"Okay, I need details," she said turning to Kol. "As many as possible. Leave nothing you know out."

(KH)

_When Immortals were first created, the spell formed a new world. Immortals were creatures that were never meant to exist, and so they belonged to neither Heaven or Hell. Instead there was a third option created for them – Purgatory. A place for them to reside until their true nature was decided, and they could pass through and find their peace, or be lost to the Abyss._

_ Of course, there is always small print in any spell, and so more than just Immortals were cursed to the Purgatory. The spirits of witches and werewolves, which had once been able to pass on, were to be caught in this Purgatory as well. And so, The Other Side was born of the spell that Silas and Amara so selfishly cast._

_ But now, The Other Side was falling apart, no longer able to hold the souls that were cursed to wander it, and so judgement was being cast swiftly in an attempt to empty it. Those who could accept that their time had come to an end could pass onto peace… but those unable to? They were to be sentenced to the Abyss – the place of darkness._

_ All were doomed to this fate… but there were one People able to negotiate with either the Abyss or the Peace. Travellers had created The Other Side, and Travellers could perform the darkest spells that would allow them exit from the netherworld_.

(KH)

"That's all very dramatic and whatever, but if Travellers have some sort of magical get-out-of-hell free card, then why didn't Markos use it?" Caroline asked when Kol finished his story. He shot her a glare, obviously less than pleased with her reaction to his story, and she shrugged unapologetically. It wasn't her fault there were plot holes.

"I would assume Markos didn't want to pay the price," he replied grudgingly. "Or perhaps he was unwilling to go into the Abyss to make the deal. You have to leave the Purgatory to make it, after all."

"Why not go to… what did you call it? The Peace. Why make a deal with darkness if you can go with light?" To Caroline, it made more sense. Want to make a deal with someone? Always choose the good guys.

"Caroline, Darling, do you really think the Peace will be as quick to make a deal as the Abyss? If you want life again, you make a deal with the Darkness… and that's where our Traveller is," the last bit was admitted grudgingly, and it was clear to Caroline that Kol really didn't like that she was questioning his genius.

Still not her fault it was so deeply flawed.

"Yeah, I think I'm probably not interested. Maybe I'll just, you know, accept my fate and go to the Peace-"

"Are you really so ready to die?" Enzo demanded, cutting her off and whirling her around. "You don't deserve to be dead, Caroline. Can you tell me that anything that has happened is your choice? Damon told me the stories – you were dragged into this against your will. _They_ dragged you in – Elena and her Salvatores – and you're telling me that you can accept fate, and simply stay dead, when Damon and Elena will continue to live on?"

Caroline clenched her teeth at that, because when he stated it so bluntly, it made it far more difficult to accept. She wished she could be like Bonnie, who was so willing to die for everyone. Bonnie would have no difficulty accepting this and moving on. She would go to the Peace and say to hell with Enzo and Kol.

And speaking of Bonnie…

"Where is Bonnie?" she demanded, looking around. "She's the Anchor. She can come here, so why isn't she?"

"Dying," Kol responded succinctly, and Caroline's spine stiffened at that, as she whipped her head to stare at him. "Surely you weren't naïve enough to think she would survive without Purgatory to keep her here? Without The Other Side, there is no need for an Anchor. And if there is no need for an Anchor, Bonnie will die. You could save her. Help us get into the Abyss, make this deal, and we can include Bonnie in it."

A thousand years had honed Kol's ability to manipulate to an acute point. Caroline could have, perhaps, resisted the temptation had it been just for her. Maybe.

But for her _and_ Bonnie?

"What about Stefan?" she asked slowly, biting her lip.

"Now you're just getting greedy, Darling," Kol replied, and Caroline glared at him, causing him to sigh and shrug. "We'll be making a deal, so maybe. But no guarantees. So, will you help us?"

Caroline bit her lip again. She knew she shouldn't. If Bonnie were there, she would tell her not to… but Caroline wanted to live. She wanted to survive and see her Mom again, and she wanted _Bonnie_ to live. Bonnie, who had sacrificed so much for them, who would accept her fate without a blink, but fight tooth and nail for her friends. Well, she deserved to have someone fight for _her_. So Caroline would do that, she would fight for both of them, and if she had to make a deal with the devil himself…

Well, then that's what she would do.

"Fine, I'll help," Caroline agreed with a nod. "So, who is this Traveller we'll be finding in the Abyss anyway? And why do you need me to do it?"

Kol and Enzo exchanged quick glances, and it crossed Caroline's mind that she should have asked when they became so buddy-buddy.

"Katerina," Kol said after a beat. "The Traveller is Katherine Pierce, and we need you because she sired Damon who sired _you_ and that means you have a blood tie to her."

Well, perhaps it would mean making a deal with the devil _herself_.

(KH)

Katherine didn't know how long she'd been floating in the darkness. It could have been seconds, it could have been centuries. Either way, she was cold and felt so very, very lost. Her entire life – five hundred years of misery and solitude – had been playing on repeat in her mind, the bad made worse, amplified by the darkness, and the good muffled until it was all but non-existent.

Even worse than the darkness were the shades. Katherine didn't know what they actually were, shade was just a name she had supplied herself, but whatever they were? They were malevolent and vicious. The darkness was so much worse when they were there, because she could all but feel their glee in her suffering. If the darkness amplified it, then the shades _fed_ on it. The more she suffered, the stronger they became, and that strength fed the darkness, which increased her suffering even more. And endless cycle, and Katherine thought she was probably going mad from it.

She floated, and suffered, and tried to block out the shades and the darkness, bits of sanity chipping away the more she remained in the shadows, haunted by memories and acts she couldn't erase.

"Katherine?"

Usually it was Nadia or Stefan. Sometimes it was Damon or her annoying little holier-than-thou Doppelganger.

"Katherine, can you hear me?"

The voice was a stranger to her, but Katherine knew it shouldn't be. That meant that it belonged to the better times, to moments when she felt something approaching happiness, and Katherine struggled to reach it, because this hadn't happened in… was it seconds? Hours? Days? Centuries? Katherine couldn't be sure, but it seemed lie eons since the happiness had tried to fight its way through.

"What do we do, Kol? She can't help us if she's…"

"Insane?"

This voice was a stranger to her. Had she ever heard it before? Maybe once, before the darkness, but it wasn't like the first voice. This one didn't belong to the happiness, nor did it belong to the darkness. It was simply irrelevant and so had left her mind before she ever made it to the void.

"C'mon Katerina. Snap to it, we have work to do."

This voice was more familiar, one with negative connotations.

_Mikaelson…_

Klaus? For a moment, Katherine struggled, because Klaus was here and Klaus meant pain and death… but Katherine was already dead. And Klaus was all but indestructible.

Confusion rose, fighting past the pain, and with it came recognition.

Kol. The voice belonged to Kol Mikaelson. The younger brother, one she had only met a handful of time, but whom had amused her, because he enjoyed assisting her, if for no other reason than the anger and frustration it caused his brother.

And the first voice was Caroline. Pretty little Caroline Forbes whom she had smothered, only to have her rise again and become a temporary thorn in her side. She had written her off as useless, only to find that there was wicked streak in the girl that reminded Katherine of herself, but that she had a loyalty to her that Katherine had never experienced and so respected.

Caroline Forbes who was here, which meant she was dead, and Caroline didn't deserve that.

Katherine felt phantom hands touch her face, and then Caroline's voice once more.

"Katherine, we need you to focus, to come back. We can get out of here, all of us… but we need your help. We need your magic."

"Not… magical…"

Katherine felt confused again. That voice, that harsh, broken voice, who did it belong to? It spoke words she had been thinking, but surely it wasn't _hers_? She didn't sound like that, did she?

"You _are_ magical, Katherine," said the second voice, the one she still couldn't place. "You're a Traveller, Love, and we need you to put that to use. We need you to make a deal."

So, it had been her voice, then. Katherine felt her mind begin to focus, to regain its capabilities, because Katerina Petrova was nothing if not a survivor, and the stranger's voice said she had a way out of this hell. A way out that she needed to focus to achieve.

"What do I do?"

_You deal with ussss…_

"What was that?" Caroline demanded, and Katherine felt her hand move from her face to her arm, and Katherine thought for a moment that the blonde might actually use her as a shield, even though the darkness meant they couldn't really see each other.

"The shades," Katherine replied grimly, because she could feel it, their malevolent presence come to try and overwhelm her. She grasped onto Caroline, Caroline who held some of the few fond memories Katherine had in the recent past – memories of working together against Wes, memories of her time in Elena's body and how, for a brief while, Katherine knew what it was like to have _friends_. Katherine held onto them, and Caroline, like a lifeline and fought to keep herself from drowning in the darkness that loomed with the shades. "They live here, they feed on the darkness, on the pain."

Katherine felt Caroline gulp, and a shiver go through her body as she felt the power of the shades, the horrible memories they brought with them, and Katherine wondered if the blonde could feel the cold that only the shades could cause.

"Fight for something good," Katherine hissed to her. "Fight for something good and tell me what to do."

"Exactly what they said, Katerina," Kol replied coolly, but Katherine swore there had been a tremor, that the Original was affected by the shades as well. "Maintain your sanity and _deal_ with them."

"We want out," Katherine called out into the darkness. "We want out. What is the price we have to pay to get that?"

Katherine heard Kol huff and mutter about amateurs, but he didn't know the shades, not like Katherine did. He didn't know how dangerous and cold they were. There would be no negotiations. If the shades decided to deal, there would be one offer – _only_ one offer – and they would either take it or leave it.

_Pretty little golden girl_, the shades hissed, and Katherine felt them, but they weren't targeting her. Caroline shivered against her, and Katherine heard her let out a little whimper. _Pretty little golden girl, let us have your _light_._

"No!" Katherine declared, and she pulled Caroline into her. She didn't know where this protectiveness was coming from – Caroline had been perfectly content to see her die, to help send her here and Katherine shouldn't _care_ about her… only…

_I slept with Klaus. Tell me what a horrible person I am._

She had been so damn _guilty_. Because she thought she had betrayed a friend, and it was torturing her, and when had Katherine ever felt bad for self-indulgence? When had her weak little doppelganger felt bad for self-indulgence?

Never, but Caroline did, and Katherine felt protective of her against her better judgement, didn't want the shades to torture her.

"You deal with _me_. You deal with me and we come to terms!"

_But that is the term, pretty Doppelganger. You have been claimed by the darknessss, _all_ of you, and you don't get to leave with light intact. You give us your light and leave, or you sssstay and we _take_ it. That issss the deal we offer._

"We'll take it!" Kol declared loudly, and Katherine growled at him. This was _her_ deal, and he didn't get to decide if they accepted it. "Oh, growl elsewhere, Katerina. Stay if you wish, but I will take their offer. What is a little darkness to an Original?"

"Gorgeous?" the strange voice said, and Katherine thought it was speaking to her at first, but then she realized that no, the word was meant for Caroline.

"Really, Enzo?" Kol scoffed, and Katherine wanted to smack herself. Of course, that's who the voice belonged to – Damon's little friend Enzo. But… how did he die? And how did he come to care enough about Caroline to speak in that soft, concerned tone with her. "You know the girl for a day and you're willing to give up your chance at release if she tells you to? Pathetic."

_All or nothing_, the shades say, but they sound amused at the interplay in the group. _We don't allow half measures. You all take the offer, or none of you do._

"Bonnie," Caroline gasped out, and Katherine felt her jerk against her. "Bonnie. Include Bonnie in the deal."

_The anchor?_ The shades pause at that, considering. _She is not in our darknesss, we cannot take her until she joinsss here_.

"Isn't there any way?" Caroline demanded, her voice desperate.

_You can accept our offer. We will asssissst Katerina in the ssspell, and then you can convince her to take the deal when Purgatory is dessstroyed. That isss our offer, little golden girl._

"Deal," Caroline said to Katherine. "I'll accept their deal."

Katherine felt a thrill of victory, because of them all, Caroline was the only one who would balk. The rest of them would accept darkness, but Caroline? Katherine actually feels surprised at her willingness… but then again…

_Bonnie. Include Bonnie in the deal._

Hadn't Katherine just been musing on her loyalty? If it meant Bonnie survived, of course Caroline would do anything, and perhaps, just maybe, it was a little for herself as well. Because Katherine remembered looking at Caroline and thinking how alike the blonde was to the young Katerina Petrova, and Katerina had hunger herself to survive.

Perhaps this was Caroline's noose.

_Every sssspell cast comessss with a price. Are you sure you want to pay the price of thissss one?_

The shades were amused once more, because they knew they weren't really giving them a choice. It was accept their deal, or remain here in torment, and what sort of option was that? But they wanted to send them away, questioning themselves, their decisions.

Katherine felt Caroline tense and thought she might change her mind, and Katherine closed her eyes, because this was her one way out the darkness and the insanity it carried, and one word from Caroline could bring a halt to that escape.

"I'm sure," the blonde said instead, but she didn't sound sure, not at all.

_Deal, then_. The shades purred.

And then Caroline's uncertainty ceased to matter.

**AN: So, not as dark as the prologue, but that's yet to come. So look forward to blood, death, and sex in future chapters… in fact, it will start with the next chapter. **


	3. This is how it feels to take a fall

**AN: Here it is. Now, I'm going to give you some warnings. Do not read this story if you dislike: sex, sex with multiple partners, blood, violence, or anything dark. This is just not the story for you. Also, character death ahead.**

**Two. This is how it feels to take a fall**

Caroline opened her eyes to the dim interior of a hotel room. She blinked slowly and realized that she had been returned to her body, that someone – probably Damon, maybe Elena – had brought it out off of the street. Her hand came up to her throat and the bite was gone. She was healed. She sat up, her joints popping as she moved. There was something different. She felt like a stranger in her own skin.

_You give us your light and leave, or you stay and we _take _it._

Caroline recalled the offer of the deal, and now she didn't know what to expect. What did it mean, that they took her light?

Voices approaching made Caroline glance toward the door – Damon, Elena and Bonnie.

"If we can get Liv and Luke to help, we might be able to bring them back," Bonnie was saying.

"And what if something we don't want claws its way through? Katherine is over there. And two Original brothers, not mention their mama and papa. And let's not forget all those vampires we killed when we killed _them_. Look, the Other Side is falling apart. You already said Stefan is gone, and I get that you want to save Blondie. Hell, there are people I would like to save, too… but they are _dead_, Bonnie. And now we have to fight for the survivors."

Of course Damon would say that. It made Caroline roll her eyes, because if saving Stefan were still an option, he would be the first to demand a spell be done. If _Elena_ were on the Other Side, he would kill everyone until someone saved her.

But it was just Caroline, so _of course_ she should stay dead.

God he was a dick. Maybe she should rip his heart out, and then he could talk about how the dead should stay dead as the Other Side fell down around _him_.

Caroline blinked at her thoughts, because they were things she often thought about Damon, but they were so much more… _vicious_. She had often wished for him to get a bad rash or the crap beat out of him, but not since the beginning had she imagined _killing_ him.

And she was, imagining it. It would be easy. He wouldn't expect it, not from sweet little Caroline. She could reach into his chest and tear out his heart and watch as the light faded from his eyes, then she could turn to Elena and watch her expression turn to agony as Caroline crushed the heart in front of her. She would cry and sob and inevitably try to get her revenge, but Elena would underestimate her, because Elena had been trained by Alaric and seemed to think that actually _meant_ something, never mind that Alaric had been a _terrible_ hunter and Liz had enrolled Caroline in self-defence courses _ages_ ago, with actual instructors who knew their shit and not drunk history teachers.

Caroline closed her eyes, tried to fight back the victorious feeling that arose in her when she imagined shoving a chair leg through Elena's chest. But it would show her what happened, when you chose abusive rapists over your best friend. It would be what she deserved –

_You give us your light and leave, or you stay and we _take_ it._

Caroline reminded herself that this wasn't her, that she was a good friend, a _loyal_ friend. What she was feeling wasn't her, it was whatever the shades had done to her, and she was stronger than it. It was just another form of self-control, really, and who was better at that than her?

The door creaked open, Damon still looking over his shoulder at Elena and Bonnie, who followed close on his heels. Caroline watched them, catching the exact moment Elena realized that she was sitting up. Her brown eyes widened and her hand came up, gripping Damon's arm so tight he winced.

"Elena what the hell – o Blondie. You're looking very… not dead."

"I feel very…"

Caroline trailed off as she maneuvered her body to stand up from the bed. How did she feel?

_You give us your light and leave, or you stay and we _take _it._

She felt wasted. Like someone had put her through a grinder and then shoved the mess back together in some semblance of vampire form. She felt as though she were a stranger in her own skin, skin that itched and burned for…

She didn't know what she burned for, but she _wanted _it.

"Caroline?" Bonnie asked, and she placed a hand on her arm. The touch startled Caroline, making her spin around with a violent hiss, and Bonnie took a surprised step back, her eyes widening, much as Elena's had. But while Elena's had been filled with shock and relief, Bonnie's were filled with horror.

"Care, your eyes," Elena said. "Your _fangs_."

Caroline reached up to her mouth. It felt fuller somehow, not at all like her normal vampire face, and her fingers came in contact with teeth before they reached her lips. Her fangs had extended far further than usual, and when Caroline caught her reflection on the glass front of the microwave, she saw that they were different. Longer, sharper. More like the fangs of a snake than a vampire. She met the gaze of her reflection, and the eyes that looked back were as snake-like as those fangs, yellow and evil with slits for pupils. They were empty eyes, devoid of anything good that had once made Caroline Forbes. Devoid of light.

"What did you _do_?" Bonnie demanded, her voice harsh and cold. "How did you come back?"

"Who cares?" Damon replied callously. "Blondie is back. More of a freak than usual, but back. Which means we can bring Stefan back without your new witchy friend. How do we do it, Barbie?"

Caroline was still staring at her reflection with a sort of mesmerized horror. They demanded her light, and she had given it, but she hadn't known what that meant. Not in that moment.

"Blondie, we don't have time for your existential crisis! How do we bring Stefan ba – neurgh!"

Elena screamed as Caroline spun around. Damon was looking down at his chest with a shocked expression, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. A hand stuck out through his chest, holding his bloodied heart in fingers tipped with vicious black claws. The hand squeezed the heart with those claws, reducing it to red shreds, and then the hand slowly retracted, letting Damon's body fall to the ground, revealing Enzo behind him.

"Hello, Gorgeous," he said grinning at Caroline. The fangs in his smile were still as a vampire's should be, but his eyes weren't. They were pure, endless black, as though all light feared to near the dark depths. "It's good to be alive, isn't it?"

Elena let out a choked sob, took a weak step towards Damon before falling to her knees. Bonnie joined her, wrapping her arms around her friend and pulling her close.

"_What did you do_?" Bonnie demanded in a hiss, looking at her with angry green eyes and Caroline suddenly wanted to rip those eyes out. She had given up her light for the chance to live again, to let _Bonnie_ live again, and this was her reaction?

"It feels good, Gorgeous," Enzo said as he wiped the blood from his hand. "It feels good to simply let it go, to give into the urges. To give into the darkness."

As he spoke, he prowled toward her, and the darkness in him called to the same darkness within her. He reached her, his hand coming up to grasp her neck, and her head tilted back ever so slightly, allowing him the access to grasp the delicate skin. He stood behind her, a hot presence at her back and her tongue came out to lick one of her fangs, the burning within her no longer a foreign feeling, but one she was far more familiar with. One of her hands came up to grasp Enzo's wrist, but it wasn't to remove the limb, but rather to caress it.

"Everyone dies for her, don't they?" Enzo murmured, his breath hot against her skin, his cheek resting against her own. "Precious little Elena somehow makes it, but everyone else is sacrificed. All for this one girl."

Caroline looked at Elena as Enzo murmured in her ear. It was true. If Elena had simply stayed dead – when she went off the bridge with her parents, after Klaus' sacrifice, when she went off the bridge with Matt – how many chances at life did this one girl get? How many lives would be sacrificed so hers would be maintained.

And now with the Salvatore brothers gone? Who was left to fight for her?

"Caroline?" Bonnie said, slowly pulling Elena away. Elena looked up at Caroline and Enzo, fear and confusion stark on her face. The two girls managed to gain their feet, and Caroline watched them. She could remember loving these two girls, feeling such strong loyalty for them, but it were as though those feelings were a ghost. A mere whisper of a dream, and instead she felt anger. She felt hate, because how many times had they banded together and ignored her? How long had they let Damon use her as his puppet, never telling her the truth. Never preparing her for when she would regain those dark memories.

How many times had Elena slept with her rapist and claimed that she loved him?

And how many times had Bonnie _let_ her?

Caroline stroked Enzo's hand, her fingers running along his claws, and his arm breath sent shivers down her spin. Shivers of dark promise and Caroline felt her lips slowly stretch into a smile that carried that same dark promise within it.

"Caroline-" Elena began, her eyes large and pleading, almost like a sad little puppy. She _was_ a sad little puppy, really. Was that what attracted so many men to her? The sad little puppy eyes that tugged on the heartstrings?

Bonnie must have read something in Caroline's face, or perhaps there was still a part of her that could sense the spirits, that could sense the way the wind blew, and that knew Caroline didn't have mercy in her for the brunette, because she grabbed Elena's arm and pulled her toward the door. They reached it at a run, bursting through the door. Caroline felt Enzo's grip begin to loosen, prepared to go after the girls, but her grip tightened like a vice around his wrist, holding him in place.

"Don't tell me you don't want to kill her, Blondie. I won't buy it," Enzo growled. Caroline spun on him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She lifted him and spun, throwing him onto the bed she had woken on, and quickly following, pinning him there.

"_Never. Call. Me. That. Again_," she hissed, holding his shirt and leaning down until their lips were a mere inch apart. "Or what you did to Damon? It will be a pleasant dream."

"Feisty," Enzo replied, and the growl in his voice sent heat spiking through her. "I do like that about you."

Caroline pulled him up as she bent down and pressed her lips to his violently. He dug his claws into her hair, their sharp edge grazing her skin, but she paid no attention as he came to a sitting position. He used the claws on his other hand to shred the back of her shirt and her bra, pushing the fabric away from her body. Caroline's hands spread out on his shirt until she could grab the fabric at the right angle to rip the shirt in half.

"I want you _in_ me," she growled, and she could hardly recognize her own voice in the guttural sound. She fumbled with his fly and, frustrated with her inability to pull it down, simply tore the zipper as she had his shirt. He opened his mouth to reply, but Caroline didn't want Enzo's words. She wanted his body, so she slanted her mouth over his and hiked up her skirt, pushing aside her underwear so she could slide down the length of him. Watching him kill Damon, the way his words had painted a picture of killing Elena, all of it had made her hot and ready for him, and her wet core easily took him in.

"Fuck, Gorgeous," Enzo groaned as she broke away from him to tilt her head back, her eyes closing at the feel of him inside of her. She began a steady pace on him. His claws tugged on her hair, and Caroline hissed at the jolt of pain, her own duller fingernails biting into his shoulders, leaving bloody crescents that healed immediately, only to be replaced with more as her fingers dug in again.

"Less talking. More fucking," she growled, and she tug his lower lip with her tongue, not caring that her new fangs punctured the fragile skin. The tang of his blood hit her tongue, and Caroline moaned at the taste, her tongue coming out to lick the wounds as they healed. Enzo hissed, half in anger half in arousal, and flipped their positions so that Caroline was lying on the bed beneath him. He pinned her arms above her head with one hand and hiked her leg around his hips, thrusting into her steadily, but far too slowly. Caroline bucked her own, trying to make him move faster, and he dug his claws into the skin of her hip in return, making her growl in pain, and just maintained that steady, too slow pace.

"Easy, Gorgeous," Enzo purred against the delicate skin of her neck, his tongue darting out to make a wet trail to her ear. "I'm not here for your amusement, Caroline. If I want to fuck you, I will. But I don't take orders."

His words made the anger in her burn brighter, fill her every pore. Because how long had Caroline spent following orders like a good little girl? How many times had she been the victim, the weak one?

Not now. Not in this bed.

She flipped him violently, straddling his waist and shoving her hands hard on his chest to keep him in place, speeding up the thrusts with a growl and the baring of her fangs.

"You'll take my orders," she hissed menacingly. "You'll take them and like them, or you won't… but either way I'll take _you_."

She yanked him up for another bruising, bloody kiss, her fangs slicing the skin of his lips heedlessly and she revelled in the feeling of power. He kissed her back, but he didn't try to get control back, and Caroline let herself revel in it, moving her hips against his in desperate search of release.

Finally she reached her peak, breaking away from him and letting her head fall back, her mouth opening in mindless ecstasy as she finally found that release. He buried his face against her neck, his own release coming out with a deep groan, his claws slicing into her skin mindlessly, but Caroline didn't mind. The bite of pain just made the pleasure that much better, the two sensations melding together until they were inseparable.

They came down from their pleasure induced high, both gasping for breath as they fell onto the bed, breaking apart. Caroline's fangs had receded, and she was sure that, if she were to look in a mirror, her eyes would be normal once more. Her pent up anger had gone with her orgasm, and Caroline lay there next to him, the realization of what she had just done, where she had just _done_ it, hit her like an avalanche.

She had just had sex with Enzo because the sigh of Damon's dead body, the thought of killing her _best friend_ had made her freaking _horny_. Caroline rolled over, looking at the floor and Damon's body. He was grey now, the mass that had been his heart a bloody mass on the floor at his feet. Caroline stared waiting for the horror to wash over her, because that's what she should feel. Instead that odd disconnect taking her over once more, leaving her feeling like a stranger in her skin, torn between what she _should_ feel and what she _did_ feel. Because she should be sick, she should be _horrified_… instead, she was… she was…

She was _satisfied_. She wanted to be sick, but instead it was as though there was someone else inside her body, controlling her actions, because a slow smile curled her lips. One more dead asshole, and wasn't that wonderful.

"Gorgeous?" Enzo asked, and Caroline rolled over to look at him. He was back to normal too, claws gone and eyes dark brown again. But he was still naked and hot and Caroline wanted to ask him what was happening to them, because this wasn't her. She didn't even think it was _him_. But that dark presence in her didn't care that something was wrong, that _it_ was wrong. It was still hungry – hungry for violence or sex or both. It didn't care, and Enzo was there and naked and Caroline found herself reaching out for him, taking his cock in her hand and taking one of his flat nipples between her teeth. Enzo groaned and Caroline's wicked smirk widened.

She should ask what was wrong with them, what the shades had done to them, but that wasn't what came out.

"Fuck me, _Gorgeous_," she murmured into his ear instead, her voice a bad mockery of his own.

Enzo's eyes became that black abyss once more, and Caroline felt her own darkness rising again in answer. There was a tiny part of her, a remnant of her light perhaps, that the shades hadn't quite managed to take, but it was easily squashed as Enzo rolled them over and thrust into her again, and Caroline's fingers bit into his back, revelling in the violence of his movements.

**(KH)**

Katherine awoke to dirt. It covered her, smothered her, and she found herself choking on it, screaming against it. It strangled her, and she thought this was it. Returned to life, only to be lost again to her grave.

And fuck the world and everyone in it if they thought this was how it would end. She didn't make deals with the devil and sell her soul for this shit. She wasn't here to die _again_. Katherine screamed out her rage, thrusting her arms above her, futile though it might be.

Her arms moved, dirt shifted, and Katherine found herself looking up at the sky. The sun was setting and it was painted red and black with the coming night. Oddly fitting, this time of day, for her return. Katherine sat up in her grave – it was shallow, and she found herself sneering, because of _course_ those Elena-worshipping Salvatores would slack on her grave – and she looked around her. The dirt she had displaced hung in the air around her, and she reached out a hand to touch some, only for it all to come falling down harmlessly around her when her fingers touched a molecule.

"Now that is impressive, Katerina. And new, I do believe."

Katherine's head spun around. There stood Kol, looking completely at ease as he leaned against a tree with crossed arms. She had always thought he looked like Elijah, but the expression his face was far more wicked than anything the Honorable elder brother had ever worn.

"Thanks for the help," she muttered, pulling herself out of the grave. Kol, smug little bastard that he was, didn't bother to offer his assistance, instead just watching her with that insufferable smirk.

"You didn't need my help, Darling. It seems that our experience with the shades changed us in unforeseen ways" – Kol straightened from his leaning position and slowly walked up to her as she got to her feet and tried to remove the worst of the dirt from his clothes – "such lovely eyes."

He murmured the words lowly, his fingers gently cradling her chin, and Katherine felt the darkness in him, felt her own as well, and his eyes became pale grey and Katherine swore she could see her death in those eyes. She jerked away from him violently, her hand coming up, and Kol went flying back into the tree he had been leaning against previously.

"Oh, that's wonderful, Darling!" he laughed, clapping his hands together while Katherine stared down at her fingers in shock, because what had that been? She had Traveller blood, but she was no witch who could use magic on her own. Even as a human capable of using the magic in her blood, she'd needed a group to be of any use. "I can't wait to see what our companions can do."

"Caroline," Katherine murmured, curling her fingers into a fist. "And … Enzo? Where are they?"

"Wherever their bodies were," Kol replied with an easy shrug and a smile. His eyes were still that mirrored grey color, and Katherine felt almost uneasy under that gaze. "Perhaps together by now. Enzo was oddly infatuated with that girl, even though her friends killed him."

Katherine thought of her own worry for the girl in the Abyss and gave a light snort.

"She has that effect," she replied. "What is happening to us, Kol?"

"Darkness, Katerina," Kol replied, and his smirk promised blood and vengeance and _death_. "We left our light with the shades, and they gave us life again – life and the means to wreak their darkness on the world."

"I don't want to _wreak_ anything," Katherine replied, but even as the words left her mouth she knew they were a lie. The darkness within Kol called to her own, even as she feared it, and the unholy light of vengeance in his eyes made her own dark desires rise in return. She could kill them all, everyone who had ever hurt her. They would hear her name, and they would _fear_, just as she had lived in fear for five hundred years.

It was their turn to run and hide now. Her turn to torment.

"All the vengeance you possibly want and more, Katerina," Kol murmured, cradling her face once more with his fingers, and this time Katherine let him, closing her eyes and imagining them all – Klaus, Damon, Elijah, Elena – cowering before her, regretting that they'd ever heard the name _Katerina Petrova_. "It's there. Yours for the taking."

Katherine opened her eyes once more, and returned Kol's wicked grin. She heard the trees around them cracking violently, her odd new power lashing out at her wicked anticipation.

"Show me the way."

**AN: Thank-you to everyone who has reviewed. This story has gotten a wonderful response, far better than I expected, and I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations. Just remember – this is a character driven story, not a shipper story. If you're looking for your favorites to fall in love and ride off together, probably won't happen. If you just want your favorites to have violent sex that may ultimately lead to nothing, well… that I can probably do. Unless I kill your favorites, then sorry dude.**

**Let me know what you think. Feedback is what makes the writer's world go round.**


	4. Oblivion is calling out your name

**AN: So, I've been AWOL lately. My one shot muse seems to have upped and away, but I still have inspiration for this… so have an update! Chapter title comes from "Oblivion" by Bastille.**

**Three. Oblivion is calling out your name**

The hot spray of the shower almost burned as it hit her skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat of Enzo's lips and tongue on her. She gasped, her chest pressed against the cool wall of the shower as Enzo thrust into her. Blood trailed down their bodies – his and hers and some of Damon's – and mixed together in the bottom of the tile. He held her breast, his hand hot on her skin, and pounded into her. More blood ran from where he dug his clawed fingers into the skin of hip, and from where she had savaged his neck with her fangs before he had turned her around and began his hard thrusts.

She had lost track of the time between her awakening and where they were now. All she knew was that as long as he was in her, she wasn't thinking about Elena, and all the ways she could kill her. But even with her vampire stamina, exhaustion was beginning to set in, and when he released himself into her again, she felt her legs shake, threaten to give way beneath her.

"We have to stop this," she said when he pulled out of her. She let her weight remain on the wall, eyes closed as the water sliced over both of them. "Keeping this up… we can't do it anymore."

"I know. I'm exhausted," he agreed, but his hand remained a hot, heavy presence on her breast, and Caroline felt herself moving restlessly again. Enzo felt her movements, her ass grazing against his cock, and he groaned into her shoulder. "That's not helping, Gorgeous."

"_Neither is your hand_," she growled out, and using every ounce of her considerable strength of will she spun around and pushed him away, climbing out of the shower. She wrapped herself in a towel, her hair in another, and stomped out of the room to raid the bags Elena and Bonnie had left behind when they had fled.

"Now, _that_ is a lovely greeting," drawled Kol, making Caroline come up short when she exited the bathroom to see Kol and Katherine kneeling over Damon's corpse. "I hope the two of you didn't cut your escapades short on our behalf. I was rather enjoying the show."

"Enjoying that… _oh_," Katherine murmured, her confused expression morphing into a wicked smirk when Caroline felt Enzo come up behind her. "Murder _and_ sex? I seriously underestimated you, Caroline Forbes."

"Lovely. Just the people I was hoping to see," Caroline muttered, digging into Elena's bag and pulling out a pair of jeans that she pulled on with quick, jerking motions. Then she moved onto Bonnie's, taking a tank top. The only bra was the one she had discarded, covered in her blood and then torn to shreds by Enzo's claws, so she had to go without one, and when both Kol and Enzo's eyes immediately zoomed in on her chest when she spun around she rolled her eyes with an angry scoff. "Answers, Kol. What did those shades do to us? Because I don't… I don't…"

"Get off on murder?" Kol replied with a charming smirk that reminded Caroline of his brother. The reminder of Klaus made her think of her death, and how he hadn't been there to save her from it, despite his promises of forever, and Caroline felt her fangs begin to lengthen once more, which just compounded her anger, because she had just gotten them under control, _dammit_! "Well, darling, I would say that all evidence points towards you getting off on it _now_. What did you think giving the shades your light would mean? That there would be no change in you?"

"I didn't think it would mean this!" Caroline shot back angrily, waving around the room. "I didn't think it would mean I would be thinking about the best way to kill my friends, or mindlessly fucking a guy I _barely_ know, or… or… _I don't care_. I don't care about Damon being dead. I'm happy about it, really, because he's an ass and the world is better off without him. Even now, I know _exactly_ how I want to kill Elena. And even though I am physically and mentally exhausted, going for round five hundred in bed seems like a good idea. So tell me, Kol, what is wrong with us? Because it's more than just not having my light, whatever that even _means_. I am a stranger in my own body."

"Stop worrying about what you should be feeling, darling, and focus on what you _are_. If you want to kill Elena Gilbert, then just say so, and we'll go do that. If you want another round with Enzo there, say so. Katerina and I won't mind… perhaps we'll even join" – Kol leaned into her with a leer, and Caroline hissed in return, snapping her fangs at him and making him laugh. He flashed forward, pushing her against the wall, his leg shoving between hers. He thrust it up, and Caroline gave a jerk of arousal, and he smirked as she moved restlessly against him – "or perhaps you'd rather go a round with me? I'm flattered, Caroline."

Caroline opened her mouth for an angry reply, but before she could say anything, Kol was removed from her, thrown across the room. Katherine held up a hand, stopping the movement of Kol's body before it could hit her, and Caroline blinked in confusion.

"Coming back with the shades blessing came with certain perks," Katherine replied with a shrug, letting Kol's body fall to the ground and stepping to the side and Enzo flashed forward, shoving the other man into the wall. She seemed completely unconcerned and simply joined Caroline in watching the two men fight. "And if you want to kill Elena, then you'll have to share the pleasure."

"I _don't_ want to kill Elena," Caroline argued, and Katherine just smirked and raised an eyebrow that said she was buying a word Caroline said. "Fine, I _shouldn't_ want to kill Elena."

"Kol is right. Stop worrying about should and should not, and just focus on what you _do_ want. It makes this all so much easier." Katherine tossed her head, sending her hair over her shoulder, and her eyes flashed red as she turned her amused gaze back to the men. Kol had turned the tables on Enzo, and punched him squarely in the jaw, sending a spurt of blood out of Enzo's mouth.

"Enough!" Kol ordered, holding Enzo still. "Don't let your jealousy get the better of you, _Lorenzo_. It won't end well. Not when it's targeted at _me_."

"Keep your hands off of her then," Enzo growled back, and Caroline frowned at the possessive tone. She didn't belong to Enzo, didn't even really _like_ the guy, and their recent… _time_ together didn't change that. Not that she _wanted_ Kol to be all pervy with her, but still…

"Okay, I'm bored of this," Katherine stated stepping up. She spread her arms to either side of her body and Kol and Enzo flew apart, each hitting a wall with a deafening thud. "Male pissing contests only interest me if they're _about_ me. You promised me chaos, Kol. Chaos and vengeance."

_Chaos and vengeance_.

The words spoke to that darkness within Caroline, and as it rose within her she felt the same dark presence rising in answer in the others.

"It looks like our sweet little angel wants chaos as well," Kol mused, grinning at Caroline. His eyes had changed now, becoming pale almost reflective grey. Enzo's were black once more, claws sharp at his sides and when Katherine glanced back at her, it was with bloody red eyes that promised pain and retribution. "Let us down, Katerina. I promise I won't participate in any more… _pissing contests_. At least not today."

Katherine dropped her arms, and both men fell to the ground with another thump. Kol regained his feet first, dusting off his clothes and looking at the other three with the look of a general regarding his troops. Caroline looked at Katherine, and then at Enzo, who was still frowning at Kol but seemed to mostly be over his outburst. Caroline didn't know what to do, how to act. The other three seemed to be taking this so easily, simply accepting the darkness within them, while Caroline felt as though it were tearing her apart. Katherine met Caroline's gaze and gave her a smirk.

"Let it go, Caroline. Be a little bad for once."

Caroline wasn't bad. She was a good vampire, always in control, always the one expected to do good things. She never dated her best friend's rapist, or tried to kill every vampire out of hatred. She was good and loyal…

_And wasn't that such bullshit?_

She was good and loyal, and as soon as she made a mistake she wasn't allowed to forget it. Because God forbid Caroline Forbes ever want something _bad_. God forbid she actually want to blame Damon for freaking _raping_ her. Well, screw them all. The only ones who hadn't looked at her with judgement for her mistakes, or who expected her to forgive the unforgiveable, were Stefan and Katherine. Stefan was dead, lost to her forever. And Katherine was right next to her, telling her to just let it go and fuck the world.

So why not? Why not say fuck the world? Caroline crossed her arms and leaned against the wall and looked at Kol, waiting for whatever came next.

"Well then, darlings. Shall we discuss our next move?"

(KH)

"What do you mean Caroline's gone insane?"

"Exactly what it sounds like, Matt," Bonnie replied while Elena made sure all the doors and windows of the house she had compelled them into were locked. "She's gone insane. She died, and somehow came back, her and Enzo, but they came back… different. _Dark_. Just, watch your back, okay?"

"We're in Mystic Falls," Matt replied after a long pause, and Bonnie was pretty sure he had been listening to something Jeremy was saying. "That means we're in the vampire free zone. We're safe for now, it's you guys who need to watch your back. I still can't believe it. Caroline."

"Believe it Matt. She came back _wrong_. We'll figure it out. We'll figure out Caroline and the Travellers and take back our home."

Bonnie didn't believe a word she had said, of course, and Matt's silence spoke volumes, saying that he didn't believe her either. But she had to hold onto hope, hold onto the belief they could be okay.

"Good-bye, Bon. Stay… stay safe."

"Bye, Matt," Bonnie replied, and she hung up the cell, feeling for all the world as though she were hanging up for the last time.

And thinking like that wasn't helpful.

"Where do we go from here?" Elena asked when Bonnie hung up the phone. "Caroline is completely crazy and Damon… Damon…"

_Is dead_, Bonnie finished silently when Elena broke off with a sob. Bonnie bit back a sigh. Elena had lost the man she loved, Bonnie needed to be sympathetic, she needed to be a friend… but it was difficult. Because Caroline was out there, murderous and with Enzo and completely _wrong_, and they couldn't deal with this. Not now. Not until they were safe.

"Hey. _Hey_," Bonnie clutched Elena's shoulders and gave her a small shake. "Elena, look at me. We need to focus. We have to get out of this alive. I'm so, so sorry about Damon, but Caroline could be coming after us. Her and Enzo."

"It hurts, Bon," Elena whimpered, clutching at her stomach. "I don't know how to do this without him."

_The same way you did for seventeen years_, Bonnie thought, but bit her tongue. Sympathy. Be a good friend.

"_Wow_. Is there _anything_ more pathetic than Elena Gilbert?"

Bonnie's blood froze at the sound of the voice, so like Elena's, only with a seductive purr that Elena's lacked. Elena looked up, still hiccupping, while Bonnie slowly turned, to come face-to-face with a smirking Katherine Pierce.

"Hey, _Bon_. How goes the anchor thing?"

"This isn't possible," Bonnie said, backing away from the smirking doppelganger. She reached out blindly until her hand came in contact with Elena's, and she pulled the other girl to the feet, and they continued to back away together while Katherine slowly prowled toward them.

"Oh, but it is. Back from the grave and tired of knowing that my sanctimonious doppelganger lives on. So I thought I'd fix that."

"Run, Bonnie," Elena said, her voice taking on a note of steel. Bonnie spun to do that, only for Caroline to step into the doorway, blocking her way. Her shirt was covered in blood, blood that smeared her lips and clung to her fingers, and Bonnie closed her eyes against the sight. Whose was it? Some random person from the street? Or the owners of the house, owners who would have been perfectly safe if they hadn't turned up?

"Care," Bonnie breathed out, coming up short. "You? You brought her back?"

"We needed a Traveller," Caroline replied with an easy shrug. "Katherine fit the bill."

"But… she was dragged away. Gone to… wherever they get taken to."

"And where do you think we went to get out?" Caroline replied with a raised brow. "But we're not here to catch up. We're here for _her_."

She pointed one of her blood covered fingers straight at Elena, who glared back defiantly with eyes that still glittered with tears.

"You're forgetting," Elena growled, letting her fangs drop and her eyes turn black. "_I_ was trained by Alaric."

With those words, Elena flashed forward, but Caroline moved just as quickly, jerking one of Elena's arms behind her back with a painful jerk and kicking the brunette in the back of the knees, making her legs give out.

"Oh, goody, you learned how to punch from an alcoholic history teacher. Why does everyone forget that my mom was the town sheriff? That my dad was more of a hunter than Alaric ever was? Do you really think they left me completely _helpless_?" With a brutal twist, Caroline snapped Elena's arm, and the brunette cried out in pain. "The reason you won last time, _Elena_? Because I didn't want to hurt you."

Elena let out a snarl and jerked her arm away wildly, breaking it further, but the move allowed her to maneuver out of Caroline's grip and throw the other girl into the wall with a thud.

"Run!" Elena shouted to Bonnie, spinning away from Caroline, who was already regaining her feet, her eyes once again turning that creepy yellow color, and Katherine, who narrowed her eyes. Bonnie didn't need to be told twice and turned back to the door way –

Only to find she couldn't move.

"What?" was all Bonnie had time to say before both she and Elena were thrown hard against opposite walls of the room, pinned there by an unseen force. Katherine stood in the middle of the room, her arms thrown to either side of her body, her eyes burning bright and wildly red.

"We didn't tell you to leave, sweethearts," Katherine drawled out. "We're really just getting started."

Katherine bent her fingers towards Elena, and as though in answer, the brunette's leg bent into an unnatural angle with a loud snap and a scream of pain. But that wasn't enough for Katherine. She continued to squeeze her fingers further, until bone cut through Elena's jeans and Bonnie thought she would be sick. She couldn't watch, turned her gaze away so it landed on Caroline. The blonde didn't look away, but there was something in her eyes. Something that looked almost sick, as though the Caroline who had been Bonnie's friend for years maybe was there, hidden away somewhere.

"Stop this, Care," Bonnie begged, and Caroline's eyes snapped to her. "It's not right. Elena doesn't deserve this."

"Keep talking, Bonnie," Katherine said as she snapped Elena's other leg, then let her Doppelganger fall to a sobbing pile on the floor. "Keep telling Caroline how she should mercy to her tormentor's girlfriend. After all, Damon was pathetically in love with Elena, so he doesn't owe anyone anything, right?"

"Damon is dead, Care," Bonnie continued, ignoring Katherine and her cold words. "If that's what this is about… he's dead. You can't get more vengeance. But you can stop this."

"Please," Katherine scoffed, turning her dark gaze to Elena and lifting her body once more. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped Elena's spine just above her waist, her back bending at a grotesque angle and bringing another scream out. Bonnie thought Caroline might actually be sick, and Katherine looked at her with a raised brow. "Well, _Care_, what do I do? Do I quit?"

"She doesn't deserve to die, Care," Bonnie said, and Caroline's gaze snapped toward her, hardening, and Bonnie wasn't sure what it was that she'd said, but she could see she was losing her.

"Maybe Elena didn't deserve to die," Caroline replied coolly. "But she did. On a bridge a year ago, and ever since she's just been stealing time from other people. Do whatever you want to her, Katherine. I'll wait for you outside."

Bonnie watched as Caroline walked away, exiting the door. Katherine watched as well, her eyes narrowed and displeased.

"Oh well," she said with a sigh and a shrug. "Her loss. Now, Elena, where were we?"

(KH)

Caroline stood outside the house Bonnie and Elena had compelled their way into, listening as Katherine continued her torture. Elena's pained cries mingled with Bonnie's whimpers, being forced to see her best friend in pain getting to the Bennett witch.

_She doesn't deserve to die, Care._

Neither had Jenna or Alaric. Stefan hadn't deserved to die, or Caroline's Dad or Bonnie's parents. How many people had been sacrificed, all because of Elena Gilbert? _Because Elena didn't deserve to die_.

If she had died, maybe they would still be alive. How many lives could have been saved, if they had simply been willing to sacrifice the life of one simple girl?

_Caroline_ hadn't deserved to die. Yet she had. Twice. And now she sat here, a monster with blood on her hands. Killing the owners of the house hadn't been necessary, but it had been _fun_, and Caroline had wanted blood and suffering and fun.

She ran a hand through her hair before she remembered that it was covered in blood, and looking down at the almost clean hand, she began to laugh, and laugh. Hadn't she always sworn she would be a good vampire? And now she stood there, blood on her clothes, her hands, in her hair… the very thing she'd fought so hard against becoming.

"I thought you wanted to help Katerina kill the Doppelganger."

Caroline closed her eyes, mentally bracing herself, and turned toward Kol.

"I guess I didn't have the stomach for it," she replied, crossing her arms and shrugging. "Katherine will take care of it."

Kol walked up the steps to the deck and stood next to her, surveying the quiet neighborhood. In the morning, the neighbors of the surrounding houses would wake up and become victims to the horrors of what they would find in the house, horrors none of them had likely encountered. The home owners' deaths had been quick, but violent and bloody, pieces of them scattered around.

"You fight it, the darkness. What do you think will happen if you win, Darling? That you'll go back to your old life, your old home? The shades were very clear. You either become what they want, or you return to them as their plaything."

"Maybe that's what I should have done to begin with," Caroline replied, leaning on the railing. Inside, she heard more bones crack, the faint sound of cracking wood, and then another muffled shriek, and she found herself wondering what Katherine was doing. "I keep thinking that we kept helping Elena cheat death, only for innocent people to die… yet here I am, doing the exact same thing."

"No one is innocent, Caroline," Kol replied coolly. "Elena and Jeremy Gilbert killed me for a cure she never even used. They released Silas, and that's what led us all to… here. Stop feeling guilty, and stop fighting it."

"It's not in my nature to give up-"

Caroline's words were cut off as Kol whirled on her, lifting her by her throat and holding her against the wall of the house, next to the door. Her air was cut off by his arm as he held her there.

"Then is it your nature to _die_, Caroline? To roll over and stop living? That is what will happen."

"Why do you _care_?" Caroline hissed. "You're back, that should be the end of it for you."

"Are you truly that clueless, little _fool_?" Kol growled out angrily. "Do you not _feel_ it? We are bound, the four of us. Bound by darkness and everything that comes with it. There is no _end of it_, not for any of us. If one falls, _we all do_."

Kol held her there, meeting her angry gaze for a breathless moment, then he leaned in, his tongue licking a path through the blood on her neck, and though Caroline's first instinct should be to kick him, to push him away, it wasn't. It was to lean her neck away, to allow him more access.

"There is no going back, Caroline," he murmured against her ear, his arm moving from her neck, letting her regain her feet, though his hands grasped her wrists, still holding her still. "It's already begun. You killed innocent people and didn't blink… not until it came to killing Elena Gilbert. How long do you think it will be before even that comes easily?"

"I think I could hate you," Caroline replied, because she knew what the answer to his question was and didn't want to say it.

"Good," Kol replied simply, releasing her wrists. "Hate is exactly what you should be feeling."

There was a loud crash from the house, and Caroline flashed away from him, towards the ruckus. She felt the connection he had spoke of, though it wasn't to him it was drawing her, but rather to Katherine.

She caught Bonnie by the arm before she got even three steps away from Katherine's little torture chamber. Elena had just made it to the doorway when she was dragged back by Katherine's powers, and Caroline pulled Bonnie back into the room after her.

"Why are you doing this?" Elena sobbed out, but she wasn't looking at Katherine. Her gaze was on Caroline. "Is it because of Matt… or Stefan? I know you were acting different… if you were starting to feel some-"

"Don't," Caroline interrupted harshly, forcing Bonnie onto the only chair that was still whole in the room. "End this, Katherine. Or someone will notice the odd sounds coming from here."

"Ruining my fun," Katherine said with a pout. "I thought you would be more fun than this."

She turned back to Elena who had struggled to her feet once more and was leaning heavily on the wall.

"You do it," Elena said, mustering up her last defiance against the pain of Katherine's torture. She glared Caroline down. "You do it."

"Really? You're giving your opinion on who should be your murderer? Are we sure we're related?" Katherine demanded with rolled eyes. "Sadly, you don't get a say."

"Don't be a coward. Look me in the eye and kill me, Caroline!"

Caroline flashed past Katherine, shoved her hand into Elena's chest, and Elena gasped, looking down with eyes widened in shock.

"Didn't think I would do it?" Caroline asked mockingly, tightening her grip ever so slightly on the heart.

"You still haven't," Elena replied with narrowed, angry eyes.

"You asked me once," Caroline said idly. "Why I jumped into bed with Damon when I first met him. Do you want the truth? It's because I was a desperate little twit. The first time. But every time after that? It was because he didn't give me a choice."

"And you're an angel? I seem to recall you slept with Klaus… you know the guy who killed Jenna? And Carol Lockwood. Such an innocent, Care!"

"Klaus is a monster," Caroline agreed with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "A horrible, terrible monster that was surprisingly charming. You want to know who else was a monster, Elena? Damon. Until the day he died. But you could never see that, and he made you a monster too. The very worst kind of monster, because both of you thought you were the victims."

"And now you're doing the world a favor by killing the monsters? Is that what you have to tell yourself to justify this?" Elena demanded, leaning forward ever so slightly, and then gasping when Caroline squeezed her heart once more.

"No. There is no justification for this. I do this, and I'm a worse monster than all of you combined… but I'll also never be a victim again" – Caroline leaned forward to speak quietly into Elena's ear – "I'm sick of being the victim. And at least this way, I'll be a monster with my eyes wide open. Good-bye, Elena."

They had all told her to let it go. To give into the darkness and all it entailed. She hadn't been willing, had clung desperately to her goodness… but Kol was right. No one was innocent. Certainly not her, and certainly not Elena.

Caroline pulled her hand back, and watched the life drain from Elena's eyes as she removed her heart. The brunette's body fell limply to the ground, and Bonnie gave out a choked sob behind her. Caroline turned around, met her one time friend's green eyes, and walked up to her. She pulled out Bonnie's hand, and placed Elena's heart squarely into her palm.

"I did this to survive, and so you could survive as well. When you die, when the other side falls, you'll have a choice. But we both know you won't choose this. You'll search and search until your dying breath for a way to bring her back – not you, but her. Because somewhere along the way her life became so important that the whole world could burn as long as she didn't. But I'm done burning for Elena Gilbert."

Bonnie didn't reply. Or maybe she did, but Caroline didn't stay around to hear it.

She walked away from Elena's body, from Bonnie's silent, shaking form. She walked away from light, and let the darkness consume her.

**AN: And there it is, the end of Elena Gilbert. One more chapter to finish things up in Mystic Falls, and then the Horsemen are taking their show on the road, headed toward the prologue. **

**Thank-you to everyone who has given their input, and I hope you let me know what you thought of this.**


	5. Things we lost in the fire

**AN: Here it is – the Mystic Falls finale. We find out a bit more about what the four can do. Also, there's a lot of blood, torture, and violence. If you don't like that… seriously, guys, if you don't like violence then really, please, DO NOT read this story. Because it's going to be violent. And I'm trying to get too detailed, but I still allude to some pretty gross shit, and Kol is really twisted. So I'll keep posting these warning before the chapter, but I don't want anyone to walk into something they can't, or just don't want to, read.**

**Four. The things we lost in the fire**

"Won't we, like, _die_ if we cross over?"

Caroline toed the town line with a boot and looked at the lights of Mystic Falls uneasily. She remembered what it had felt like, almost dying because of the curse the Travellers had cast. She didn't much fancy feeling as though she were being smothered.

Again.

"Things are different now, Darling," Kol replied in that blasé way of his, that made Caroline grit her teeth. "This time, we're alive thanks to _Traveller_ magic. You'll be fine."

"We're still vampires," Enzo pointed out, taking a positon at Caroline's shoulder that showed very clearly which side of the argument he was on. "And vampires were created by witch magic. See the issue?"

"Oh, for God's sake," Katherine grumbled, and she stepped across the town line. She remained perfectly still for a moment, her back rigid. When it became clear nothing was going to happen to her, she turned back to them. "See? Perfectly fine. So come one, already. Two seconds in Mystic Falls and I'm already bored."

"That doesn't prove anything. You died human, remember?" Caroline replied. "We" – she motioned between herself and Enzo – "were _vampires_. And you were too, come to think of it. So why don't you go first, Kol."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Kol sighed before stepping across the line. Caroline watched him with baited breath, but, just like Katherine, he stood there completely unharmed. "Is that proof enough? Surely if the spell were going to harm anyone, it would be the one who used to be an Original vampire."

Caroline and Enzo looked at each other, and he gave a shrug and held out his hand, much as he once had at the Traveller camp. This time, Caroline took it, and together they stepped over the town line. Both froze the moment they felt the spell wash over them.

And then there was nothing. They remained completely unharmed, and Caroline turned her gaze to Kol, suddenly thinking of something he had said.

"What do you mean, the one who _used_ to be an Original vampire?" she demanded with a scowl.

"Oh, darling, haven't you realized yet?" Kol asked with a mock look of disappointment that made Katherine smirk, because she had obviously figured out whatever it was that was making Kol so damn smug.

"For the sake of science, let's pretend I haven't," Caroline replied, trying to muster up patience – a difficult thing to do when you've turned your back on all of life's virtues.

"Bonnie let you guys be ridiculously clueless in the ways of magic," Katherine stated, twining her arm with Caroline's and leading her away from the men and towards Mystic Falls. "He meant exactly what he said, Caroline. He _used_ to be an Original. Just like you _used_ to be a baby vampire."

"And if we're not vampires then what the hell are we?" Caroline demanded, her temper growing with each non-answer she received.

Katherine grinned, and it was the closest to a genuine smile Caroline had ever seen her wear, even if it looked out of place when matched with her blood red eyes.

"We're exactly what the shades need us to be, Caroline. We are the darkness."

Another non-answer, really… but Caroline thought she liked the poetic nature of the statement. So she let herself be lead down the road by Katherine and felt a smile grow on her own face, as genuine as Katherine's.

_The darkness_.

Yes, she did like that.

**(KH)**

"So why are you so keen to keep your siblings alive?"

Katherine's heels clicked on the asphalt as she kept pace with Kol's long-legged strides. They had separated from Caroline and Enzo, Kol deciding to send the other two to watch over the Travellers, while he and Katherine took care of other business. Katherine recognized the direction they were headed in, knew that the other business was Jeremy Gilbert, but there were more important things for her to deal with than her dearly departed doppelganger's brother.

"What makes you think I'm after the Traveller's to keep my siblings alive?" Kol replied easily. "I mean really, Darling, that's rather presumptuous of you."

"Why else?" Katherine shot back. "You already showed that Traveller's spells have no hold over any of us anymore. If they did, none of us would still be alive after crossing the town line. Now, unless you have some hidden vampire lover, which I doubt, because _hidden_ doesn't seem your style, then that just leaves your siblings."

"I _could_ have a hidden lover," Kol replied, letting his eyes drag up the length of Katherine's body in blatant perusal. "What do you say, Katerina. Want to try another Mikaelson brother?"

"Well, I _have_ heard you're the fun one," Katherine mused, stopping and leaning her body into Kol's. His eyes flickered, changing to that odd, reflective grey and he leaned down, catching Katherine's mouth with his own. It was a deep, tantalizing kiss. The kind that you felt in your toes and that led straight to the bedroom. He didn't bother with going slow, instead diving right in with tongue and teeth, and had Katherine been anyone else, she probably would have lost herself in him.

But she was Katherine Pierce, and Katherine Pierce was always in control.

She pulled back, and whirled around, her hair grazing his face as it flicked behind her, and she began to walk again. Her tongue flicked out, licking the taste of his lips off of her own. He wasn't the first Mikaelson she'd ever kissed. In fact, she'd done more with Klaus when she was human, and then with Elijah more recently. But Klaus hadn't truly wanted _her_ and Elijah had always kept his control so rigid, and so being kissed by Kol – Kol who not only embraced the monstrosity that was vampire nature, but _revelled _in it – was somewhat of a revelation.

"Where do you think you're going?" Kol demanded, quick steps catching up with hers easily. His voice was low and gravelly, and clearly irritated. He obviously hadn't wanted to stop yet, and that made Katherine smirk smugly.

"Do you want to kill Jeremy Gilbert or not? Personally, I've thought the world would be better off without the little brat ever since I discovered his existence. Although I'm not quite sure why you feel the need to murder him _now_. Couldn't it wait?"

"I want our dear Miss Forbes distracted. The girl was… irritatingly good, and she seems to be having some difficulty dropping old bad habits. Right now, she's riding the high of Elena's death and the promise of eliminating the Travellers. Who knows what mood she'll be in once we've succeeded?" Kol came to a halt outside the Lockwood mansion and Katherine came to a stop next to him. He surveyed the solemn building with crossed arms.

"Do we just walk in?" Katherine asked, lowering her voice so that there was no risk of Jeremy overhearing her.

"I want to have some fun, Katerina," Kol replied, a devilish smirk quirking his lips. "Come out, come out, Little Gilbert!"

Katherine rolled her eyes, because _really_, did Kol think Jeremy would just come out like that?

The door creaked open, and apparently Kol was right, because there was Jeremy in the doorway holding a crossbow, gorgeous Matty Blue Blue standing at his shoulder.

"You're dead," Jeremy stated, holding the crossbow focused on Kol's chest, and Kol flourished his hands in a _what-are-you-going-to-do_ motion and shrugged.

"What can I say? Death suited me ill," he replied easily. "Put that down, Gilbert. We both know it won't do anything to me."

"Maybe not you," Jeremy agreed, and he abruptly changed the aim of the crossbow, shooting it straight at Katherine's heart. It was such a predictable move that Katherine had to bite back an irritated sigh as she held her hand up, stopping the arrow with her telekinesis. Could anyone blame her for thinking Jeremy a waste of space when he shared her dull Doppelganger's mediocre imagination and lacked even Elena's good looks?

"I'm bored," she told Kol. "Kill him."

"I thought you had more imagination," Kol gave a mocking sigh as Katherine let the arrow fall harmlessly to the ground. "Perhaps the lack is a Petrova trait… although that doesn't explain why young Jeremy shares it."

Katherine clenched her teeth at the mention, because hadn't she just been thinking that the Gilbert's lacked imagination…

And Kol was smirking at her with a knowing glint in his eyes, and Katherine felt her eyes widen… _because she had just been thinking that the Gilbert's lacked imagination_.

"Good girl," Kol murmured, turning his attention back to Jeremy. "Now, Jeremy old friend, shall we chat?"

"I won't tell you where Elena is," Jeremy replied, his jaw set stubbornly. Kol tossed back his head and laughed, and Katherine felt herself smirking smugly, because _as if_ they would have needed _anyone's_ help to find Elena. Especially not with her type-A ex-best friend on their side. It had taken Caroline all of fifteen minutes to decide where they would hide.

"Oh, Little Gilbert," Katherine purred out, making Jeremy's eyes dart in her direction. "Big sister Elena is already dead."

"What?" Matt said, the first time he'd spoken since their arrival. His expression was stricken, and Katherine thought it made his eyes seem even more blue.

"Indeed," Kol agreed. "Caroline ripped out her heart… verbally, and then literally. It was rather impressive, really."

"Elena died knowing exactly who was responsible for every death around her," Katherine agreed. "It was poetic, really."

"You're lying," Jeremy stated. "Caroline wouldn't do that. She loves Elena."

"Caroline is one of _us_, Little Gilbert," Kol replied with a vicious grin. "Look on the bright side, your death didn't warrant her presence, so she must not hold a grudge against you. Perhaps she'll even mourn you and your Quarterback friend when you die."

"I know I will," Katherine replied with a mournful sigh, looking longingly at Matt, and Kol shot her a sharp glare. "Not _Jeremy_, obviously. Matty Blue Blue… but you already knew that, didn't you?"

She knew she was pouting, and her expression made Kol smirk, but how was it fair that he could read her mind (all their minds?), when she had no idea what thoughts he was hiding behind his cocky smirk.

Like why he was so desperate to keep his siblings alive.

"Forever the best night I never had," she added to Matt, who simply glared at her, and Katherine shrugged and blew him a kiss.

"We won't let you kill us," Jeremy stated, taking a step back so he was in the house once more. "And you don't have an invitation into this house."

"This could have been much simpler, you know," Kol said with a heavy sigh, but there was unholy glee sparking in his eyes. He had expected this, had looked _forward_ to Jeremy making this difficult.

He didn't want this to be fast.

Neither did Katherine.

Jeremy Gilbert had been a thorn in her side for far too long. She wanted the little runt to suffer just like Elena had suffered… until Caroline ripped her heart out. Side-by-side, Katherine and Kol made their way up the steps to the front door of the Lockwood mansion. Jeremy and Matt watched them warily, but were far too at ease, assuming they were safe behind the barrier of the invitation.

But they had come back different, and invitations were no longer required.

When a smirking Kol pushed Jeremy backwards as he stepped over the threshold of the house, the look of pure fear that fell across the boys' faces made the darkness within Katherine swirl in glee.

"You were saying, Jeremy?"

Neither boy answered, turning as one to run toward the other side of the house. Katherine chuckled in glee as she reached out with her power, pulling Matt to a halt. Kol, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as gentle. He brought Jeremy to a halt by grabbing him by the throat and throwing him into the opposite wall.

"Why?" Matt asked softly as Katherine stepped up to him. She ran the back of her fingers down his cheek, shaking her head in mock sadness as his blue eyes looked at her with a kicked puppy expression.

"Nothing personal, Matty Blue. We have each other's backs, you see. And Caroline doesn't want her mom knowing about her miraculous revival. She wants Liz to live in peace. We want Caroline to be able to walk away from here without any pesky regrets… so you have to die. It really is a pity."

Katherine moved her fingers away from his face and clenched a fist, cutting off his oxygen as she did so. Matt's eyes widened and he clawed at his throat, as though he could somehow rip her powers away from it, but Katherine watched him without expression. Behind her, she heard Jeremy let out a low moan and a crack of bone, but remained focus on Matt. There would be plenty of time to observe Jeremy's torture when this was done.

When Matt finally lay motionless on the floor, his face red and blotchy from the strangulation, Katherine unclenched her fists and, in a brief flash of something almost like pity, she carefully pushed his eyelids closed.

"Bye, Matty Blue," she murmured before turning to Kol and the Littlest Gilbert.

"Well now," Kol mused as he picked up a stool and carefully removed one of the metal legs. "I've had some time to think about how I wanted to do this. I would have preferred having a baseball bat… but c'est la vie. We do what we can."

With a whirl, Kol turned around jabbed the metal leg right into Jeremy's stomach with enough force that it came out his back, pinning him to the wall. Jeremy let out a scream that made Katherine wince, and she crinkled her nose when other smells hit it and wondered how Kol could stand it.

"Now, that's just embarrassing," Kol stated, nodding at Jeremy's soiled clothes. "I'm embarrassed on your behalf."

Jeremy's only response was to dry heave from the pain. His skin had gone pale and sweaty, and Kol gave a delighted laugh before bringing up his foot and crushing Jeremy's kneecap with a hard stomp that pushed it into the wall.

"I think I might feed you your own eyeballs," Kol mused with a dark, sadistic smirk. Katherine surveyed him with narrowed eyes. His eyes had that pale reflective grey, the color that meant he was allowing the darkness full reign. Katherine wasn't as hesitant to allow it control as Caroline was, but even she was hesitant to let it out wildly, but Kol apparently had no such difficulty. As he casually crushed bones and twisted the pole every now and then. That wound would kill Jeremy, but it would be slow, and it was clear that Kol meant to enjoy every moment of it.

When he made good on his promise, finding a spoon in the kitchen for digging purposes, Katherine had to make her escape. She heard Jeremy's screams even as she retched dryly on the front porch. For the first time since Elena had shoved the cure down her throat, Katherine was happy she lacked a vampire's superior senses. Simply knowing what Kol was doing, hearing Jeremy's screams, was bad enough. She didn't need the rest of the accompanying sound effects.

"I would have thought Katherine Pierce would have been made of sterner stuff," Kol said jovially, joining her on the porch, wiping his hands clean on a dish towel. More blood was spattered down the front of his shirt, and he licked some more blood from his lips.

"I killed to prevent myself from being killed," Katherine replied, her retching finishing. Kol held out the dish towel and Katherine eyed it, and the blood on it, for a moment before she decided that beggars couldn't be choosers and she grabbed the towel, wiping her mouth clean. "Are we good to leave now?"

"In a moment. Where do you think the Lockwoods would have kept their gasoline cans?"

Katherine gave him a deadpan look, because how the hell would she know that? Her interactions with Tyler Lockwood had begun and ended with her planning to hand him over to Klaus for a sacrifice. She hadn't exactly asked him where he kept his spare gasoline cans.

"Well, wait here, Darling. I'll go and find them."

Ten minutes later, Kol stood next to her once more, empty gasoline cans at their feet. He pulled out a box of matches and held it out to Katherine.

"Care to hide the evidence, Darling?"

Katherine raised a brow at him and gave a small smirk, accepting the matchbox. She struck one and held it up between them. Then, with another smirk, she let it fall between her fingers and onto the trail of gasoline. Together, they watched as the fire followed the trail into the house, licking at walls and furniture as it gained strength.

"_Now_ can we-"

Her words cut off when screams of agony began to echo from the house, and her head whirled around, eyes widening.

_Jeremy_.

She looked at Kol, who was smiling as the screams grew in volume and pain. It wasn't a smirk, but a true, genuinely gleeful smile. It remained on his face as he led her away from the deck, stood on the driveway and listened to Jeremy's screams, until they echoed no more, screams and boy both dead.

Katherine gulped, and Kol laughed, his eyes reflecting the flames.

**(KH)**

"You're in a good mood. Giddy, almost."

Caroline spun around at Enzo's statement and grinned at him.

"_This_ is what I've wanted. Elena… getting rid of her was necessary. But this? This I'm looking _forward_ to."

"There are other things I'd much rather be looking forward to," Enzo muttered, and Caroline didn't miss the way he glanced down at the cleavage revealed by shirt. She still hadn't found a bra to replace the one he'd torn apart, and the thin fabric of her tank top left little to the imagination. She rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers in front of his face.

"Eyes up here, buddy," she said, motioning towards her face. "Look, we had sex once… well, multiple times, but within the same…"

"Marathon?" he suggested helpfully, wiggling his brows, and she had to bite back her chuckles.

"Sure, that works. But just because we enjoyed one… _marathon_, doesn't mean it's going to become a regular thing."

"But I'd rather like it to become a regular thing," Enzo responded as Caroline turned her back to him and continued to walk down the street, toward the Grill. Ten minutes in town had shown Kol that the Travellers were gathering there for some sort of creepy Traveller pow wow, and so Caroline and Enzo were headed there to keep an eye on things, mostly Markos, while Kol and Katherine took care of other, unnamed business.

Caroline would guess that business was likely Jeremy Gilbert, but she figured the less she knew, the better off she'd be. If they wanted to skin themselves a Hunter, then who was she to judge? She's already done the same with a Doppelganger.

"How long do you think they'll take?" Enzo asked, his eyes darting to the alley behind the Grill, and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Seriously? One track mind much?"

"Well, I don't really care about all this," Enzo waved his hand around, encompassing the town. "These grudges belong to you lot. The only ones left to me were Wes and Damon, both dead, so yes, now I have a one track mind. Are you sure I can't tempt you onto that track?"

Caroline looked at Enzo considering, then at the alley, then back, but before she could give into temptation, she caught sight of one of the vehicles parked out front of the Grill.

Her mother's patrol car.

"Shit," she muttered, her eyes narrowing. "Mom is in there."

"So, go tell her to leave," Enzo replied, twirling a strand of her hair around a finger. Caroline slapped his hand away and shook her head with irritation.

"It took me forever to convince her I wasn't a monster when I was turned," Caroline retorted, narrowing her eyes on the car. "Now that I really am a monster, it's better that she go on thinking I'm dead."

"Won't Bonnie-"

"I wasn't _just _being bitchy when I said Bonnie would spend the rest of her time trying to save Elena," Caroline cut him off harshly. "She won't talk to my mom. She'll be too busy martyring herself on altar of Elena Gilbert. It's what Bonnie does best."

She continued to scowl at the car. She heard Enzo huff in irritation behind her, then she felt his hands rest on her shoulders and she stiffened automatically.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, and then Enzo's fingers began to dig into her tight muscles. Caroline felt them give under his ministration and she began to relax.

"You're tense, Gorgeous. This is supposed to be _fun_, remember?"

"I remember," Caroline agreed, closing her eyes and letting her head loll back as Enzo continued the massage. God, but he had talented fingers.

The sudden blare of sirens had her head snapping up, hitting Enzo, who had been leaning down, in the nose. He recoiled with a scowl and a shout of pain, and Caroline cursed as well, grabbing her head.

"Fuck!" she swore before hitting him in the shoulder. "Seriously Enzo? What were you doing – you know what? Never mind. Who knows what was going through your pervy mind."

"My pervy mind?" Enzo murmured as she turned away, pressing delicately at the skin around his nose. "Really?"

"Stop talking," Caroline replied, looking at her mother's car which was pulling away from the Grill, sirens on full force. "What's going on?"

"That took longer than expected. The Mystic Falls police department's reaction time really leaves something to be desired."

Caroline jumped with a yelp, clutching at her heart as Kol and Katherine materialized out of the darkness of the alley. Her reaction made Kol chuckle, and Caroline frowned at him. His expression was too happy, his eyes too bright, especially when paired with Katherine's far more contemplative look.

"We decided to take care of two birds with one stone," Katherine explained when she caught Caroline's gaze. The contemplative look faded, replaced by her normal smug expression and a small smirk. "Distraction and eliminating Jeremy Gilbert and Matty Blue."

"Matt as well?" Caroline asked, her gaze tracking the lights of the police car as they faded away. She thought it would disturb her more, but she had buried something essential with Elena's death. Her pity, perhaps? Her empathy? Whatever it was, it made it impossible to feel anything for Matt and his demise.

At least she wasn't _happy_ about it. That was something, she supposed.

"There goes your chance to get in his pants," she said to Katherine, who gave a mock sigh of regret.

"I know. You dated him, right? Was he as amazing as I always dreamt he'd be."

Caroline considered that and thought back to her relationship with Matt. She gave a bit of shrug.

"He was okay," she replied. "I've had better. He definitely wasn't worth putting up with the Elena obsession."

Katherine wrinkled her nose at that news.

"Disappointing," she said.

"It could be," Caroline agreed, and Katherine looked startled for a moment before she burst out in laughter.

"Harsh, Caroline. And in rather bad taste," Katherine wrapped an arm around Caroline's neck and looked at Kol and Enzo. "We did it, boys. We tainted her. Go us!"

"Indeed," Enzo replied with rolled eyes. "Go us. What's next on our list, Kol? Do you have a plan for the Travellers."

"I do," Kol replied. "We kill them."

That said, he turned and made his way toward the Grill. The others fell into step behind him. Caroline had to admire the Originals sense of drama. He had perfect timing as he pushed the door open so he was framed dramatically in the entrance, the door hitting the wall with enough force to draw every eye in the place toward him.

"Hello, Lovelies!" he called out, and Caroline was taken back to Homecoming and a different brother standing on a stage and clapping his hands together in that same way. For a moment, she was there again, wondering if that would be the night they were all dead. Then she blinked, and remembered that this was Kol, and no matter the superficial familiarities, he was _not_ Klaus. And she wasn't the same girl who'd had her neck snapped by Tyler. "My name is Kol Mikaelson – oh, don't bother getting up – and my companions and I are here to kill you."

"And how do you think to achieve that?" demanded a dark haired man with a beard, and Caroline knew by the way he held himself that it was Markos, the leader of the Travellers. Caroline flashed to Kol's side, ignoring the shocked murmurs of the Travellers, because the whole town was supposed to be a vampire free zone.

"He's mine," she said to Kol, her gaze arrowed in on Markos, who was watching them with narrowed, appraising eyes. "That's Markos, and he's mine."

"Hmmm…" Kol hummed, looking down at her with his own appraising gaze. "You're hogging the fun, Darling. You already got Elena. Don't you want to spread the fun around?"

"The fun has been spread around plenty. He's the reason Stefan is dead, the reason _ I_ died, so he's mine. It's personal, Kol."

"It always is with you," Kol replied with a sigh, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into his side. "Well, my pet here wants you dead… Markos, is it? And I do like to indulge her when at all possible."

"How are you here?" Markos demanded. "Our barrier-"

"Holds no sway over us," Kol replied, and his smile was still charming, but his eyes were chilling. They were dark and empty, and then they changed to that eerie reflective color and he let his fangs drop. "Have at it."

His words had the Travellers moving frantically for the exits, but Katherine was ahead of them, holding out her hands and keeping the doors closed with her telekinesis.

"That's just rude," she purred out, red leaking into her eyes. "We didn't say you could leave."

"Drama queens the lot of you," Enzo muttered with rolled eyes. He flashed forward, grabbing a Traveller, and Caroline recognized him as her fifth grade teacher, and tore into his throat with his fangs. The Travellers watched on with silent, shocked horror until Enzo removed his fangs from the man's neck, his lips and cheeks dripping with blood. He smiled a bloody smile and let the man's body fall with a dull thump to the ground. The sound broke through the horrified trance that had descended upon the Grill, and someone screamed. People began pounding on the doors, and someone threw a chair through the window, hoping to escape that way, only to be thrown by Katherine over the bar.

"If you're going to do this, do it now!" she called over to Kol. "I can only take care of so many people at once."

"Let them escape if they can," Kol replied easily, wading into the Travellers. Unlike Enzo, who was draining one body after another, Kol preferred to simply snap necks and drop the bodies in his wake. "We'll go hunting. It will be fun."

Caroline turned her back on the other three, focussing her attention on Markos once more.

"You shouldn't have come here," she said to him, prowling forward slowly. He backed away, and Caroline let the darkness creep into her, let her new fangs drop, and enjoyed the horror that washed over Markos as he took her in.

"What _are_ you?" he demanded as his back came in contact with the bar and he had no where else to retreat to.

"I'm what you made me, Markos. Behold your creation. Aren't I beautiful?" Caroline hissed, and she grabbed him by the throat, rearing back in preparation to strike… then she paused.

There was a stirring in the darkness. She blinked in confusion for a moment, but something was telling her not to strike, not with her fangs. She let them snap back up and concentrated on the darkness, on what it wanted from her.

She swore she could hear the Shades' voices hissing in her ear.

_Take him… give him to usss… let it ssspread…_

"What are you doing, Gorgeous?" she heard Enzo call, but she didn't react. Instead she cocked her head, listening to those voices, hissing the same things over and over, that they wanted Markos, that they wanted the darkness spread. They wanted to be fed.

Markos shifted in her grip, and Caroline's eyes shot to his once more.

"What are you doing?" he asked, and his voice came out as little more than a sad whimper.

"I'm letting you feel the darkness," Caroline replied, and then she leaned down, pressing her lips against his in harsh mockery of a kiss. The darkness that had whispered to her rose and she felt it move from her, wrap around Markos, and when she pulled away he was staring at her blankly, his mouth still agape.

His eyes had become yellow, just like hers.

Caroline pulled back from him, released him, and at first she thought he wouldn't move, that whatever she had done had frozen him. Then he straightened and turned from her, picking up a bar stool. Caroline cocked her head and watched as he walked toward the panicked mass of Travellers, stool in hand.

_And began to beat one of them with it_.

She took a startled step back at the brutality of it. Markos' face was screwed up in a silent scream of rage as he beat the other Traveller's head into a bloody, unrecognizable mess before turning to another one.

And the disposition of the Travellers began to change. They had been panicked, begging for death and desperate to escape, but now they were turning on each other, rage in their eyes. She watched one woman try to claw another's eyes out, only to be grabbed by yet another, and have her head slammed repeatedly into a table until it wasn't just blood that was being splattered across the table. It was like a disease had been spread amongst them, turning brother against brother against sister against _everyone_.

Caroline was soon joined by Enzo, Kol, and Katherine. The latter would send any of the enraged Travellers who got too close flying backward into the mass. Kol was watching the whole thing with something like glee, and Enzo was watching Caroline with a thoughtful expression.

"This is wonderful, Darling!" Kol crowed with a clap. "How did you do it."

"I don't know," Caroline admitted as she watched a woman with a broken tequila bottle stab Markos in the back. He turned around, hitting her across the head with the bar stool, only to have a man bring his own stool down on him. Soon, Markos was lost in the mass of the fight, and Caroline knew he was dead, crushed beneath the feet of his own people.

She smiled.

"The Shades," she said. "They wanted me to spread the darkness."

"Did they?" Kol ask, looking away from the mob to survey her appraisingly. "Well then."

"Is there more to this than even the great Kol Mikaelson knew?" Katherine asked mockingly, sending yet another would-be attacker flying. "And can we get out of here? I'm getting tired."

"We have to make sure they all die," Caroline replied. "Or it will just keep spreading. I can't control it now. They've been infected."

Katherine gave an irritated sigh and opened her mouth to make what would have certainly been an insulting remark, but instead she froze. Her eyes were still red, but they seemed darker somehow, as though a shadowy haze had covered them. She turned back to the mob and began to walk into it.

"What are you doing, you daft bint?" Enzo called after her.

"Controlling it," was Katherine's succinct response. She stood in the middle of the floor, yet none of the Travellers tried to touch her. One came at the other three, and Kol simply snapped his neck, still watching Katherine. She stood there for a moment and Caroline waited for something to happen.

It didn't.

After a moment, Katherine simply turned around and walked toward them.

"It's done," she said simply. "It won't spread beyond those already infected."

"How do you know?" Enzo demanded as Katherine walked past them, headed for the exit.

"The Shades told her," Caroline replied, following after Katherine. Her only worry had been that her mother would be infected, but if Katherine said the mindless rage would spread no further, then that was the end of it. And she was done with Travellers.

"Where to next, boss?" Katherine asked mockingly as they left, and Kol chuckled lightly.

"Ultimately, I wish to visit my family… but I believe we've earned a bit of a holiday. So why don't you lead the way? Anywhere you want, Katerina."

"I hear New York is wonderful this time of year," Katherine replied, and she grabbed Caroline's arm to pull her with her. "You ever been?"

"Nope," Caroline replied, as she reached out to grab Enzo and drag him with them as well.

Enzo let himself be pulled along by the two women, but he looked back once at the Grill, where Kol had stopped, was watching the place. Caroline and Katherine were chattering about New York and shopping, but Enzo was watching Kol, and listening to the Grill.

Or rather, listening to what wasn't there.

The sounds of chaos and murder had ceased, and Kol's expression, lit by the streetlights, was brutally gleeful, his eyes reflecting the light, but it wasn't quite right. There was a shadowy haze over the reflection, just as there had been in Katherine's eyes when she said she could stop the spread of the rage, as there had been in Caroline's eyes when she began the spread.

Kol met Enzo's gaze over the growing distance between them, and his expression was supremely satisfied, and Enzo wondered what Kol had discovered his own Shade-induced ability to be.

**AN: And there we go. Now, there is still probably a chapter, maybe two, before we reach New Orleans. Because there is a month between their return and the prologue, remember. Which means we still have a month before we get to that point. But once we do get to NO, it's gonna be fun.**

**Next chapter we will probably see what Enzo can do, and now that they're headed to places with fewer personal vendettas, they'll probably be dealing with the darkness in ways that do not involve as much blood and violence.**

**It's sex. I mean sex… in case you were wondering. Next chapter will most likely have smut. Don't know who yet, but I feel like it's time again.**

**Also, I want reader input. I have a few different possible endings for this. It won't really change the middle ground, and will only come into play at the end, and I'll mostly likely go with whichever one fits best with how the middle ground goes, but your input may be able to influence the direction somewhat… I have a "happy" ending (meaning not everyone is dead and there may actually be an allusion to happily-ever-after), an ambiguous ending, and a depressing Hamlet-esque (ie: everyone dies) ending. So, how would you guys like to see it go down? Let me know!**


	6. And these little things define you

**AN: And in this chapter is the last of what I consider the "figuring out what the hell we can do" arc. Please enjoy:**

**Five. And these little things define you**

New York was alive and sleepless, and Caroline thought that she could happily spend the rest of her days there.

She danced with Katherine, letting the brunette run her hands along the length of her body, wrap around her and brush against her breasts. She grinned to herself, as she caught the eye of a boy nearby, and he was watching them with lust.

"Want to really give them a show?" Katherine asked against her ear, and Caroline laughed and turned in Katherine's arms to pull her in for a kiss, still moving her body to the beat. She gripped one hand ruthlessly in Katherine's hair, let her tongue thrust into the other girl's mouth, and felt her moan against her lips.

"Two hours in New York, and you're already tormenting it's male citizens, Gorgeous? Now that's just cruel."

She grinned into Katherine's kiss, breaking away as Enzo's presence made itself known at her back.

"Are you tormented, Enzo?" Katherine purred as Caroline turned to meet his dark, amused gaze. Katherine ran her finger down the length of Caroline's neck and then rested her chin there, and Caroline just knew she was smirking at the man.

"Entertained, actually," Enzo shot back. "You ladies put on quite the show."

Katherine's hands grazed under Caroline's tanktop, fluttering over the skin of her stomach and making the muscles there tighten. Caroline caught the eye of the lustful boy from before once more, and grinned, reaching out to pull Enzo toward her, so that she was trapped between him and Katherine. The boy turned his gaze from her and Katherine to Enzo, and that look became dark and jealous.

"Now you're just using me," Enzo stated with amusement, but his breath caught when Katherine's hands reached between his body and Caroline's grazing against the front of his jeans.

"Are you complaining?" Caroline retorted with a raised brow as she wrapped one arm around Katherine's neck and used the other to tug Enzo down by his shirt. She kept hairsbreadth between their lips and continued. "Are you sure you want to do that."

Enzo let out a low growl and closed that distance, claiming her lips much as she had done to Katherine, who was now pressing open-mouthed kisses along her neck. Caroline closed her eyes and let herself fall into the sensations. Enzo's lips were firm and strong against hers, while Katherine's were soft and warm on her neck. One of his hands had found its way to her ass, cupping her tighter against him, while Katherine's had ventured up further beneath her shirt, was grazing the bottom of her breast. The brunette's other hand had once again found Enzo's jeans, was busy there with things that could probably get them arrested for indecent exposure.

Caroline didn't care. Why should she? New York was their playground, and the people surrounding them? Just puppets for them to have fun with. She could feel the shadows within her, shadows ready to unleash lust or violence into everyone around them, and she let her eyes open languidly, to once more meet those of the young man.

"We should spread out the fun," she murmured into Enzo's ear when she broke their kiss, and she managed to untangle herself from the other two, sauntered towards that young man. He watched and, in what she imagined he thought was a smooth move, handed her a drink. Caroline accepted it, smelled the drug he hoped to use against her in it, and smiled at him as she let the liquid slide down her throat. He watched with hungry eyes, and she thought to herself that he deserved this.

She pulled him down for a kiss, and when he opened his mouth hungrily, she let the darkness pass into him. As her lips worked him, she felt Katherine at her back, ready to play her part in Caroline's little game. He broke away from her, eyes dark and violent, and grabbed his beer bottle from the table, breaking it on the edge.

The people nearest to them screamed when the blood spurted from his throat, splattering across Caroline, as he took the bottle to his own throat. Caroline took what she hoped was a surprised step back, right into Katherine's waiting arms.

"You're getting better at that," she murmured into Caroline's ear, and she knew Katherine was using her own abilities, to keep the darkness contained to that one, stupid boy that had foolishly thought to roofie Caroline.

They had taken their time getting to New York, stopping at every dive bar along the way to experiment. Caroline unleashing the darkness, Katherine keeping it contained. It had been Kol's decision, and it had been a good one. They had discovered that Caroline could unleash the darkness, could guide its purpose, but only Katherine could control its spread.

Caroline wasn't sure how Kol had kept the "outbreaks" under wraps, she just knew that he always remained behind, to clean up after their little tests. Five days of a roundabout journey to New York, and she and Katherine had become excellent at working the darkness in tandem, as evidenced by the boy slitting his own throat and no other victims.

Widespread pandemonium was fun… but in a city the size of New York? It was unwise. Unless it had purpose.

At least, that's what Kol said.

"Are you okay?" Caroline turned her gaze from the boy's body to the concerned gaze of what must be the club manager. "Did he cut you? God… I… is there something I can do? The cops are on their way-"

"I think she's in shock," Enzo said, stepping up behind her and hugging her into his side. "We'll just take her outside."

"Yeah… of course. Of course."

The manager was shaken up, hadn't even thought that the cops would want Caroline around to question. It was better that way. She didn't want to have to kill him as well, for annoying her.

The trio left, Caroline very clearly _not_ in shock, and once they were clear of the club, she let out a hoot of laughter.

God, but had she ever felt so _free_? She'd always been so _rigid_. She had to be on all the councils, be the leader for every event. Then, once she became a vampire, she had to prove to the world how _good_ she was. And the whole time, she could have said screw it, she could have been _free_, and she had been wasting the opportunity.

"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" she asked her companions with a grin, before pulling Katherine in for another kiss, simply because she could.

"Now, _that_ is a lovely sight."

Caroline broke off the kiss with a start. Kol appeared next to them, and she bared her fangs at him for surprising her.

"Oh, don't be like that, Darling. I see you've been having fun" – Kol grasped her face in his hand, tilted her head, and bent down to lick some of the blood away from her cheek – "you taste delicious."

"I bet I do," Caroline replied, jerking her head away from Kol. There was something about him that made her uneasy, something that was even darker than what was within the rest of them. It meant him both their undisputed leader, and just slightly separated from the rest of them. There was none of the easy camaraderie with Kol that there was with Katherine and Enzo.

"Well then, the night's still young," Kol stated, allowing her to put distance between them. "And we have more tests to do."

"Seriously?" Caroline argued with rolled eyes. "But we've done, like, a _million_ tests. Kat and I are good at the whole thing now. Can't we have a night off?"

"Oh, it's not always about you, Caroline," Kol drawled out, flicking a lock of her hair. "No, tonight is about our dear friend Enzo."

"As far as I can tell, I have no special power," Enzo replied dryly, his gaze on Kol slightly distrustful. There was a constant tension between the two males, and it was thick there now.

"Of course you do, Lorenzo. And I think I know exactly what it is."

Kol turned on his heel, began to stride down the street. Katherine gave an irritated huff and grasped Caroline's hand, pulling her after the Mikaelson. Caroline in turn reached out and grabbed Enzo, pulling him along as well.

Never once did any of them consider not following their supposed leader.

**(KH)**

"So, tell me why we couldn't have gone to one of the hundreds of _decent_ night clubs New York holds for this?"

Caroline poked at the glass holding her vodka tonic with distaste. She could see a smudge on one side, and the vodka smelled subpar at best. She sat with the others at a table in the back corner of what could only be described as a dive bar and pouted because she'd thought they were done with places like this after their journey through small town, U.S.A to get to the big city.

"Because no one cares about low lives like these at the end of the day, Darling," Kol drawled, and he obviously had no issues with the poor alchol and dirty glasses, because he tossed back his scotch perfectly content and turned his gaze to Enzo. "Now, Lorenzo, let's see if we can't get your magic going."

"I still don't see what you expect me to do," Enzo stated, leaning back so his chair was resting on just two legs. "I haven't gotten one of your magical epiphanies. Do you expect me to force one?"

"Ah, but that's the magic of it – you've been working _your _magic the whole time." When the other three simply stared at him, Kol let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. "Really, am I the only one in the least bit familiar with the Book of Revelation? We have darling Caroline, our White Horseman. Conquest, Pestilence, whatever you wish to call her, she awakens the darkness and unleashes it. Then there is the lovely Katerina. Red looks lovely on you darling, so it only makes sense that you be our Red Horseman. War. She gives the darkness direction, can spread it or keep it contained. Now, that leaves only two Horsemen… the Dark Horseman, and the Pale Horseman."

"Famine and Death… so tell me, _Death_, and I assume you are death, how do I play in then? Do I make them starve for the darkness?" Enzo asked with a snort before he took a sip of his beer, and Caroline found herself thinking that he'd been the smartest of them, choosing something that came pre-bottled.

"That's _exactly_ what you do, Lorenzo," Kol replied with a grin. "You are the messenger. You ride in and act as judge. And so far you've found everyone you've encountered guilty."

"So far I've found this little interlude rather boring, Kol. Stop waxing poetic and speak plainly, won't you?"

"You're rather ruining my fun, Enzo," Kol drawled out, pushing his glass away from him and heaving a sigh. "You are the one that makes it possible for Caroline to unleash the darkness. Without you, the rest of our powers are utterly useless. You should feel special."

"Oh very special," Enzo replied with rolled eyes. He turned his gaze to Caroline and grasped her hand, tugging until she moved from her seat to his lap. She let him, giggling when he buried his face against her neck, nipping her pulse point. "How about it, Gorgeous, want to celebrate how _special _I am?"

Caroline opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a squeak as she found herself landing on the floor, hard. Kol held Enzo pinned to the wall by his throat, the younger man struggling in vain against the Original's iron grip. Katherine joined Caroline on the floor, grasping her arm and helping her back to her feet. They both kept their eyes on the two men as Kol snarled in Enzo's face.

"I grow weary of you, _Lorenzo_. Either do as your told, or I'll rip out your heart."

"Ah, but if you do that who will unleash your darkness, or whatever it is I supposedly do?" Enzo replied with a choked voice. Caroline glanced around the bar, saw that they were drawing the attention of some of the unsavory inhabitants of the bar, and moved with Katherine to Kol and Enzo's side.

"Dive bar or not, the bartender looks like he might call the cops… or the leg breakers, or whoever it is that you call in for troublemakers in a place like this. So could the two of you knock it off?" she hissed.

"But Enzo's not being a team player, Darling. We can't have that," Kol replied in an airy voice, though his eyes remained angry and focused and Enzo's, who gave him one of his charming, devil-may-care smirks, one that didn't come close to reaching his eyes.

"Enzo, can't you just play along?" Katherine asked, though it sounded more like a demand with impatience coloring her tone. "Care and I did, and he was right."

"Ah, but didn't you hear Kol, Katherine? I'm not a team player."

Caroline muttered under her breath and released Katherine's arm. She ducked under Kol's arm, still gripping Enzo's throat, and pushed herself between the two men. She could feel Kol, pressed against her back, reacting to her sudden closeness, but she focused her attention on Enzo, running a finger down his chest and smiling up at him from beneath her eyelashes.

"Do it and I'll make it worth your while," she murmured, pushing herself flush against the length of him.

"Gorgeous, are offering sexual favors in exchange for my cooperation?" Enzo choked out, and Kol's hand loosened its grip around his throat as Enzo looked down at her, though the Originals didn't move from where he was pressed against Caroline's back.

"That depends… will it work?"

Enzo smirked down at her thoughtfully, his eyes darting up at Kol briefly, and whatever he saw in the other man's face made Enzo's smirk widen. He grasped Caroline's hips and pulled her tighter against him, stepping to the side so she moved away from Kol.

"So, Captain, what do I have to do?" he drawled out, never releasing his grip on Caroline.

Enzo refused to release his grip on Caroline as he made his attempts to control the powers he had, apparently, been using all along. Katherine remained at the table with Kol while the other two made their way around the bar, and she could see Enzo growing more frustrated each time he failed to prevent Caroline's darkness from unleashing itself.

"Maybe you're wrong," Katherine murmured as yet another fist fight broke out. "Maybe his power is something else."

"I'm not wrong, Katerina," Kol drawled in reply. He smirked at her and gave his lap a pat. "Come here and I'll explain to you why."

"Offering to let me try a third Mikaelson brother again?" Katherine replied with a smirk. "Or not."

"Holding out hope that you'll be invited to join in with Enzo and the ever lovely Caroline?" Kol replied with a slight sneer. "You won't be. Enzo is possessive of her. Doesn't like to share. If, of course, he thought for a second it was _him_ you were interested in… well, things might be different."

"You think I want Caroline Forbes?" Katherine turned up her nose and poked distastefully at her still untouched drink. "Please, I think my history says where my sexual preferences lie."

"I think you see a devil in an angel's form and you want _that_. I can't blame you. I wouldn't mind a taste of her myself. But I'm not nearly so picky, and a devil in vixen's clothes is just as tempting to me."

"It's not bloody working!" Enzo snapped, interrupting Kol as he leaned toward Katherine, slapping his hand on the table. "And I'm tired of being here. Let's call it a night."

"You're interrupting us, Lorenzo," Kol hissed, looking up at the other man in irritation. "You're not trying hard enough. Teach him, won't you Caroline, Darling?"

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be _teaching_," Caroline replied, a sharp edge in her voice.

"Figure it out, and leave Katerina and I _be_," Kol snapped back. Caroline glared at him, her nose wrinkling with annoyance, before she spun on her heel with a hair flip and stalking away, Enzo in tow.

"You _are_ frustrated, aren't you?" Katherine murmured in amusement, though her gaze was focussed on Caroline's ass, showcased spectacularly in a dress she had purchased earlier in the day, specifically for that evening.

"I'm not the only one," Kol noted with some amusement, and Katherine dragged her gaze back to him.

"She's attractive," Katherine replied with a shrug. "And considering how many men she's had wrapped around her finger, you've got to assume that she has other hidden talents as well."

"I'd rather talk about _your_ hidden talents," Kol replied leaning in. He was just about at Katherine's lips when the smack of skin-on-skin interrupted them once more – yet another punch being thrown.

"For fuck's sake," Katherine muttered, leaning back as Kol's eyes took on their reflective shine, the shadows fluttering over them, and then…

The people in the bar around them collapsed. One moment another fight was brewing, the next the few inhabitants simply fell to the ground.

"They're dead," Caroline said, kneeling next to one of the corpses, her mouth opened ever so slightly in shock. "Holy shit, they're dead."

Enzo's eyes moved from the corpse over to Kol, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Well then, Death… that is an interesting trick."

"Indeed. _That's_ what using the power looks like for me. Now shall we see if we can't find out what it looks like for _you_."

Katherine let out a sigh and thought longingly of her bed and a warm, willing body next to hers – Caroline's, Kol's, a complete stranger, at this point she didn't care – with an uncomfortable wiggle. God, but it was going to be a long night.

**(KH)**

Enzo was frustrated. Three bars later, and he still hadn't figured out the powers that apparently came so easy to everybody else.

"If I'd known you were going to be this slow of a study, I would have thrown my lot in with Silas instead," Kol told him in annoyance, and Enzo wished he could punch the other man. He was tired, frustrated, and Caroline was wearing a dress that showed off her legs to perfection that Enzo _really_ wanted to rip the hell off of her.

They hadn't had sex since that night he killed Damon. She had been riding the high of death they had left behind in Mystic Falls, and while she had smiled and teased him, she hadn't seemed to feel the need to scratch that particular itch. Not until tonight. And if he didn't figure this out soon, she would be using bloody _Katherine_ – who was whispering in her ear and making her giggle – to scratch that itch instead.

"Maybe we're doing it wrong," said the girl of the hour herself, interjecting herself into what could easily devolve into a fight once more. "Maybe we need to take another approach."

"Like what?" Katherine asked, pouting slightly as Caroline climbed onto Enzo's lap. He gave the brunette a small smirk as Caroline straddled him, before turning his attention to the blonde and the way her dress rode up her thighs. It was buttercup yellow and looked much like the dresses she had so loved to wear in Mystic Falls, but there was something so much more enthralling about her looking so sweet and innocent when Enzo knew what lurked beneath her surface.

"You've been using the power the whole time. That's easy. What's not so easy is pulling it back in. It was more difficult for me to direct the darkness than to simply unleash it, so it should be the same for you. You've marked all of these innocent people for corruption, now you need to _unmark_ them" – she bent her head down, running her lips over his and grinding their hips against each other. Enzo felt himself hardening against her, and his fingers dug into her hips – "focus on it."

"I don't know how I even marked them, Gorgeous," Enzo replied in a strangled tone, and he wondered how Caroline would respond if he were to unzip his tightening jeans and take her right there in front of Kol, Katherine and the whole damn bar.

"Concentrate on _me_, Enzo. On the darkness. We react to each other, can feel it in each other."

Enzo closed his eyes and let Caroline's words wash over him. She continued to grind against him, and he let his head fall back, feeling her one him, in him, _around _him. Her powers nudged against his, and his nudged right back.

"You feel my power, now feel _yours_," Caroline's breath was hot against his ear, the sensation mixed with the steady rhythm of her hips driving him insane. "Feel your power, and open your eyes and _see_ it."

It was a struggle, but Enzo did as she commanded. He opened his eyes and looked around. Caroline still rubbed against him, but she was no longer just Caroline. He could see darkness wrapping around her, trailing outward. It trailed against Katherine and Kol, each with their own darkness, but different from Caroline's. Theirs didn't reach out as Caroline's did. It didn't wrap around the others in the bar, causing shadows to appear where there may not have been any otherwise.

Enzo followed one of those tendrils, to where it wrapped around a young woman at the bar, and he finally understood what the others meant when they told him it was instinct. He coaxed that shadow away from the girl, watched as the darkness it had coaxed from the girl rescinded, leaving nothing more than a sweet faced innocent sitting at the bar.

"The girl at the bar," he murmured to Caroline. "Try and make her kill someone."

Caroline stopped her movement on his lap, smiling at him as she got to her feet and sauntered to the girl. The pain of his erection made him think he should have kept her there a bit longer, let her finish him, because watching her walk, watching her draw the girl in and press her lips against to hers, just made it all so much worse.

The girl at the bar responded to the kiss with enthusiasm, but when Caroline pulled away, there was no black in her eyes. Just glazed, glassy desire, and a sweet blush.

Enzo felt victory rise in him.

"Wonderful!" Kol said, clapping his hands as Caroline left the girl at the bar with a drink and returned to them. "Now we're ready."

"Ready for what?" Caroline asked. "And can it be done tomorrow? Because I have… _things_ to do tonight."

"Tomorrow will be soon enough to chat about that, Darling," Kol replied, his smirk victorious and vicious and just a little bit frightening. "For tonight, why don't we celebrate our small victories?"

**(KH)**

Kol had pulled Katherine onto the dance floor at his declaration that they needed to celebrate. It didn't seem to matter that George Strait was crooning out of the jukebox (and really? Didn't these people realize they were in _New York_), so long as it meant he got his hands on her. That left Caroline to straddle Enzo once, and smirk down at him.

"I'm brilliant!" she informed him. "Although I'm not sure I like know that _my_ powers depend on _your_ whims."

"Ah, but I'm a slave to you, Gorgeous," Enzo replied, his eyes glazing ever so slightly as she began to rock against him. "Consider your whims my whims."

"That's sweet," Caroline replied with a smirk. "I really want to have sex with you right now."

"I really want to have sex with you," Enzo replied agreeably. "See? Already, your whims are my own. Shall we get out of here?"

Caroline smirked at him and reached between them, slowly – _very slowly_ – pulling his zipper down, and she saw his throat work frantically, his eyes widen slightly, at the action.

"No, Enzo. You don't quite get it. I want to have sex with you _right now_."

"Jesus Christ," Enzo murmured as she took his length her hand. The table they had claimed was tucked in the corner, allowing them some semblance of privacy, but had they been sitting at the damn bar, Caroline was pretty sure she'd still want this.

Knowing that everyone could see them? That only the most naïve fools would have any questions as to what they were doing? Her already wet slit just grew more so at the thought.

"Now would be the time to say no," Caroline advised him, but Enzo seemed to be incapable of articulation, and offered up no response as Caroline slid down the length of him. She felt her breath catch, let out a little whimper at the sensation. It had been five days since their marathon, and Caroline hadn't realized how much she had _needed_ this.

Murder had its own pleasures, but anyone who tried to claim it was better than sex? Total liars.

She rocked against him, another whimper escaping, before burying her face against his neck. He dug his fingers into her hips once more, and this time she felt the bite of his claws.

"Careful," she moaned against his neck. "I like this dress."

"I'll compel you another," he managed to choke out in reply, but his hands released their grip on her hips and ran up her body instead, cupping her breasts. She felt his thumbs graze her nipples and let out a low gasp. "I want these. I want lick and suck, but I don't want everyone else to see you."

"I think it's kinda exciting," she replied, her voice breaking on _exciting_ as he gave the sensitive peaks a tweak. "And I want you to suck, too. Sucking sounds _wonderful_."

Enzo growled at her words, burying his face in her cleavage. Caroline had never been so happy that a top was strapless as she was when Enzo nudged the dress down enough to tongue her nipple. She closed her eyes and buried her fingers in his hair. The movements of her hips became more jerky as he took the nipple between his teeth, bit down just enough to walk the line between pain and pleasure, then lapped the sting away.

"Shit, Gorgeous," Enzo murmured against her breast when she gave her hips a swirl, her movements growing more erratic as she approached her peak.

"I'm not going to finish in this position," she hissed when he nuzzled her other breast. Her grip in his hair tightened, pulling him back from her breast to look at him with fierce eyes. "I need to finish, Enzo."

He turned a contemplative gaze behind her, to the table.

"There won't be any secrecy. And I'm pretty sure we could be arrested. Public place and all."

And perhaps Caroline would have balked at it, even now, had she been in the right state of mind. It was one thing to ride him as she had been, when there could be some semblance of secrecy to it, it was another thing to let him fuck her on a table in a New York bar.

But she was hot and horny and _that_ close to the edge. She couldn't wait until they got to a room, or anywhere else that would take _time_.

"Fuck me," she purred in his ear, and true to his earlier words – _your whims are my whims_ – he had her ass on the table in a second, thrusting into her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips, and held on his movements got harder, more violent. Their corner meant they went mostly unnoticed, but as Enzo pushed her closer to the edge, she saw some of the closer bar goers doing double takes, then staring at them shamelessly.

She wasn't sure if it was Enzo – he was remarkably good at sex – or if it was those gazes locked on them, watching them with thinly veiled lust, or maybe a mixture of both, but Caroline was pushed over the edge, the grip of her arms and legs tightening, holding him closer, as she hit her climax. She felt his release in her, and what they did next… maybe it was to quiet their respective orgasms, or maybe it was just because they were in tune with each other, their Shade-gifted abilities binding them, but Caroline found herself burying her fangs in Enzo's neck, even as she felt him do the same, their expressions hidden in the darkness of the corner, keeping their observers from seeing the monsters they carried.

"Wow," Katherine's voice cut through their lust induced haze. Caroline's eyes flashed over to her, to see the brunette fanning herself with her hand. "That was _hot_. That made me horny. How about you?"

The question was addressed to Kol, who was just a step behind her. His expression was amused, but his eyes were dark with lust.

"I didn't realize you were into such public displays, Caroline," he said simply.

The words made reality hit her. There she was on a table in a bar, underwear pressed to the side, dressed shoved around her waist, and she felt her face flame as Enzo pulled away from her, keeping his body between her and the majority of the bar as she pulled her dress back into place, got off the table. He tucked himself away, and looked down at her, his eyes questioning.

"I wanted sex," Caroline said to Kol, trying to be blasé about the whole thing. "And I got it."

"Hmmm," Kol hummed. "You're blushing, Darling. Katerina and I were thinking to return to our rooms. Would the two of you care to join us?"

It was clear that the invitation wasn't just to share a cab back to the hotel, an d Caroline gave him a flat look.

"I feel rather satisfied at the moment."

"Your loss," Kol replied. "Let's go, Katerina. You two behave yourselves. We plan for an early morning."

"Why?" Caroline called to his back. "I know you said you'd tell us tomorrow, but can't you give us a hint?"

"I'm planning a family reunion, Caroline Darling," Kol replied, his back to her. "It shall be grand fun."

The words all but knocked the air out of her lungs, and Caroline reached out for Enzo's arm. A family reunion.

_Klaus_.

**AN: So, next chapter should take us to the prologue. There will also probably be some Koltherine smut at the beginning, because I've been neglecting them. So, in case you're still sort of confused about the powers and how they work, here it is:**

**Enzo is the messenger. He comes in and marks people for "corruption". Without him, none of the other powers can work.**

**Caroline is the bringer of the "corruption". Anyone who Enzo has marked? She can make them give into their inner darkness. She can also direct where that darkness is aimed – it can be at themselves, at others, at anything she wants.**

**Katherine can basically turn the corruption off. Once Caroline has worked her powers on someone, it spreads from them to others who have been marked. Katherine can stop the spread. She can also direct the spread. So if she, say, wanted a certain type of person to be corrupted? As long as Enzo has marked them, she can direct the darkness to them.**

**And Kol is death. Anyone to whom Caroline has spread the darkness? He want them dead, then they're dead. **

**So, the four need one another, because if one of them is gone, then they can't use the full powers. It's a symbiotic relationship.**

**Let me know what you thought!**


	7. This is your heart

**AN: So, this chapter takes us to New Orleans at last. We learn a bit more about Kol's plan, there is some jealousy, and someone hooks up! Please enjoy:**

**Six. This is your heart**

"You're tense," Katherine mused. They sat next to each other, Katherine having decided the flight should be _girl time_, while the men sat in the seats behind them. Kol had compelled them first class, so Caroline felt no guilt whatsoever in letting her chair lean back to try and get some sleep.

Katherine was right, though. No matter how comfortable the seat was, she remained tense.

"I have reasons to not want to see Klaus," she replied shortly.

"Is it because you slept with him?" Katherine shot back, causing Caroline gave her a tight lipped glare while Kol leaned around Katherine's seat to look at her with raised brows.

"The more I learn about you, Darling. I knew Nik had his little obsession with you, but I didn't realize you'd actually let him have a taste. Tell me, Enzo, as you're the only one of us that the lovely Miss Forbes has let between her lovely thighs, how likely is it that my brother's obsession has simply increased after actually having a taste?"

"Sod off," Enzo replied from behind Caroline, and she looked out the window to hide her little smirk. Enzo, it was clear, did _not_ like Kol, or the way he spoke to Caroline.

"Well, my brother has a taste for wolves these days, or at least he did. The bundle of joy they shipped off with my sister tells me your charms may not have been so all-consuming after all."

Caroline tensed at that, could almost feel the vicious glee coming off of Kol at having dropped such a bomb on her, but she ignored him in favor of attempting to understand what she had just been told.

_A baby?_

How was that even possible? Caroline might only have a very rudimentary understanding of biology, but she was pretty sure that after a thousand years, Klaus' swimmers should be dead. There was a perhaps a pang of hurt at the news, because of the whole _I intend to be your last _speech, but Caroline didn't want to focus on that too much. Instead, she would focus on biology, and the impossibility of what she was being told. So…

"How is that even possible?" she asked, looking at Katherine who didn't seem the least bit surprised by Kol's revelation.

"Witchy shenanigans, nature's loophole, blah, blah, blah, miraculous Hybrid baby. I was born in the fifteenth century, Caroline. Anything we couldn't understand we called witch craft and then burned a bitch."

Caroline opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, considering Katherine's words. Finally, she gave a shrug, because who was she to argue with fifteenth century logic?

"Okay, then… does that mean we get to burn a bitch now?" she asked, looking at the other three with curiosity.

"Perhaps a certain werewolf, hm?" Kol asked, reaching out to twine some of her hair around his fingers. "Hayley, I believe the name was."

"_Seriously_?" Caroline hissed out, and this time she felt anger. Because it was bad enough he had apparently shacked up with some werewolf, but the freaking _Appalachian Wonder_? The girl who helped Tyler unsire all his precious Hybrids? Hello! Wasn't that the whole reason he sent Tyler on the run in the first place? And wait, if Hayley had his baby… Caroline did some quick math in her head. "Sonuvabitch!"

Katherine smirked and Enzo rolled his eyes while Kol raised an amused brow at Caroline's outburst. Several nearby passengers looked in her direction, and one middle-aged woman with a child in the seat next to her gave her what could only be called a scandalized glare. Caroline sneered in reply, because she had just found out that Klaus had slept with freaking _Hayley_, so junior could put up with hearing a few curses. It wouldn't kill him.

"As much as your outbursts amuse us, care to tell us what brought this particular one on?" Kol drawled out.

"That bastard knew! He knew when he came to my grad and told me he would be my last love and then _deigned_ to allow Tyler to return, as though he were doing me some huge favor! But no, he was just rushing off to his baby mama, and why not let Tyler come back if he wasn't going to try and get into my pants for the next nine months?"

_Only he had_, the thought bitterly to herself. _And succeeded._

And didn't that just _piss her the hell off._

"He destroyed my life. He came in like a tornado and tore it apart, and then he knocked up the girl that did the _exact_ same thing he killed Carol Lockwood over," she hissed, meeting Kol's eyes with a dark expression. "I want him to _burn_."

"Excellent," Kol replied with a wicked grin. "I suppose I should mention that Elijah is also rather infatuated with the lovely Hayley? Or so I hear."

"What?" Katherine shrieked, and not caring about the woman in the seat over or her child or the judging glares, continued without a pause. "That sanctimonious bastard!"

Kol sat back with a smirk, and Enzo frowned at him thoughtfully as Caroline tried to make Katherine bring the volume of her curses down to a dull roar, rather than shrill shrieks.

"You're angry with them," he murmured, and Kol looked at him with a raised brow. "Your family. You want them to hurt, why?"

"Because it wasn't them that discovered a way for me to return. It wasn't them, who killed Jeremy Gilbert. Always and forever, they used to say… my family is a joke, Enzo. A joke that's been allowed to run rampant for far too long."

"And me?" Enzo continued after a moment, because he could understand Kol's thirst for vengeance. Hadn't such a thirst driven him to killing himself by way of Stefan Salvatore? "I have no particular interest in your family… so why would I help you?"

Kol merely smirked and turned his gaze to the back of the seat that held Caroline. She had managed to calm Katherine down, was murmuring lowly to the other woman, her hand resting on her knee. Enzo narrowed his eyes at Kol, who gave him what was likely meant to be an innocent grin, but instead came off as looking dark and twisted.

"As long as Klaus lives, he holds pieces of her. Pieces that can never belong to _you_."

Enzo felt his jaw tighten, and he jerked his gaze away from Kol, looked out the window at the clouds below them. Damn the Original, for seeing through them all so well. And damn _him,_ for even now affecting Caroline so much that she actually dreaded visiting his city.

Enzo wasn't fool enough to believe the dread meant good things for him. There had been enough hurt in her voice, as they spoke of this Hayley, for Enzo to know that Klaus was still unfinished business for Caroline, and that made his gullet _burn_.

He would share her with Katherine. Even with Kol should Caroline want it, though he wouldn't enjoy it. But the Hybrid, this Klaus? He was not one of them, and Enzo had no intentions of letting him have her again.

**(KH)**

Klaus had said that New Orleans was full of culture, music, and art. As Caroline spun around, taking in the scents and colors, she thought she could maybe see his point. There was history here, rich and dark, just the type of history that screamed Klaus.

"So, are we walking up to your siblings?" Katherine asked Kol. She held Caroline's hand, keeping her anchored with the group, so she didn't wander off or get lost as she looked around her. "Simply saying, _hello, we all hate you. Want some tea?_"

"I don't hate them," Enzo pointed out from Katherine's other side. He was watching Caroline with amusement, but every now and then he would catch sight of something, look at it with wide eyes, and Katherine was reminded that though he was close to a century old, he had spent most of that time locked up in a cell. New Orleans was likely as foreign to him as it was to Caroline, he was simply better at hiding it. "I don't even know these blokes."

"Then you should walk up to Klaus, tell him all about how you and the cheerleader here are getting it on, on the regular. See how he reacts," Katherine replied with a smirk. Caroline stopped her spinning and scowled at Katherine.

"Or not," she retorted darkly. "He has Hayley. Who I do is really none of his business."

"Oh, yes. Do tell Nik that, Darling," Kol stated, looking down the street with slightly narrowed his eyes, his arms crossed as he considered the place. "And do make sure I'm there when you do so. We all know how very fair my brother is, after all. Fool him once, get a dagger to the heart. Be fooled by him? It was simply for your own good."

"You're right. He's psychotic and cruel, so why are we _here_?" Caroline demanded, hands on hips glaring at Kol. "Do you want to know what would be the biggest fuck you we could give Klaus? Living our lives with nary a thought spared for him."

"Nary," Kol repeated slowly. "I like that. Have you been using one of those word a day calendars?"

Caroline's scowl simply darkened, because she _had_ been using a word a day calendar before her death. Not that she would admit that to Kol. He simply chuckled and grasped her chin in a too-hard grip.

"I'm afraid I'm rather more like Nik than I might care to admit, Caroline. Fool me once, or, rather, don't avenge my death? Well… here we are. This is his kingdom. The city he's decided to call home. Him and my ever so noble brother Elijah. And we shall burn it all to ash. Unless, of course, you still feel for him? He destroyed your world, sacrificed your best friend. He set off the events that turned you into a vampire, and then he acted as though he fell in love with you. He lied to you, fucked you against a tree. Left you to face the consequences alone, so he could return here. To the wolf girl and their unborn child" – Kol circled around her as he spoke, then moved onto Caroline – "the ever so noble Elijah brought you in, made you love him all over again. And then he abandoned you for a different damsel, a different city. Just as he abandoned you as Katerina Petrova. Let you kill yourself, then let my brother kill your whole family. How many times will you let him break you, Katerina? How much longer before you break him in return?" Katherine scowled, but didn't reply as Kol wrapped his arms around hers and Caroline's waists, turning his gaze to Enzo. "And then there's you. No connection to my siblings it's true… but don't you want to assist our girls here? Avenge their wounded honor?"

"You've made your point, Kol," Enzo growled with rolled eyes. "What you haven't done, however, is explain to us what your plan is. I assume you have one?"

"Of course, but first we need to do some research."

"Research?" – Enzo raised a dark brow and smirked at Kol, who bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile – "Is this you admitting you don't actually know everything?"

"I'm only one man. As much as I jumped around during my extended stay on the Other Side, I could only be in one place at any given time. I need details. I need to know what the relationship is between Nik and Marcel. What role that pretty little blonde bartender plays in the whole mess. And I need to know what the little witch keeps hidden away in her church loft."

"Is any of that supposed to make sense to us?" Caroline murmured to Katherine as Kol began to pace, continuing to mutter about the things he needed to know.

"I don't know. Hey, Kol! Snap out of the crazy for a second! What are we supposed to do while you decide what you need to know?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Kol snapped out in irritation turning on her. His eyes flashed, and Katherine took a nervous step back while Caroline angled herself so she was in front of the brunette. Kol seemed to come to his sense when he saw Caroline's fangs drop, and his irritated expression turned into his charming, though terrifying, smile. "You're Katerina Petrova. _The_ Katherine Pierce. No one has the intelligence network of Katherine Pierce. Not even my formidable brothers. I want you to _use_ that."

"Difficult to do when I'm not exactly a vampire."

"None of us are anymore, Darling. Not really, anyway."

Katherine rolled her eyes at Kol's cavalier reply and crossed her arms.

"Fine. Difficult to do when I can't even _pass_ as a vampire anymore. I could toss them around like rag dolls, of course… but _that_ would probably get back to your brothers pretty fast. Which I assume you _don't _want."

"You assume correctly," Kol agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "This does present a conundrum, doesn't it?" His gaze assessed the other three, travelling between them as he tapped his chin with a finger. "There's nothing for it. Enzo, you'll accompany Katerina. Be her vampire muscle."

Enzo looked ready to argue, but Caroline beat him to the punch.

"And me?" she demanded. "What am I doing?"

"Why, Darling, you'll be taking in the sights of New Orleans with me, of course" – he held out his arm to her, and Caroline looked back at Katherine and Enzo with a nervous expression. She hadn't had cause to be alone with Kol, not since they'd been resurrected. Enzo's expression was tight, his eyes flickered between black and his natural eye color. Katherine just shrugged apologetically and tugged on Enzo's arm, pulling him away before he could start something that Kol would finish. That left Caroline to look back at Kol, still holding out his arm, uneasily – "come now, Caroline. I'll only bite if you ask me to."

"I'm not into biting," Caroline replied pertly, because what worked on one brother would surely work on the other, right?

Kol's slow, wicked smile made her think that assumption was way off base as she twined her arm through his and he pulled it into his side snugly.

"We'll see about that, Darling."

**(KH)**

"Why are we stalking a bartender again? This so isn't my idea of sightseeing."

Caroline wasn't sure what she had expected her time with Kol to entail, but it wasn't this. Sitting in the back of a tiny bar, watching a blonde work the tap, chatting with a pair of men that must be regulars, if the conversation she was eavesdropping on was anything to go by.

"I don't know, she is quite lovely. Sort of the bargain store version of you, really. I wonder if that's what appeals to my brother? All of the pretty blonde hair, none of the vicious tongue."

"Obviously you just haven't experienced my _vicious_ tongue for yourself." Caroline gave Kol her best bitch-smile, guaranteed to make at least two girls cried when used at the right time in cheer practice. "After all, I haven't had any complaints. _Definitely_ none from Klaus."

"Is this you offering, Darling?" Kol replied wickedly, and Caroline's smile fell away. She mentally cursed herself, because shouldn't she know better than to try and play those sorts of games with Kol?

He didn't play by her rules, by the rules Klaus had always seemed to abide.

"I don't get it," Caroline admitted at last as they continued to watch the bartender. "I mean, don't get me wrong, she's pretty. But she's human. And Klaus wasn't like Rebekah. He didn't care about the human experiences that he lost. He liked who he was."

_Strong, ageless, fearless._

The words came to her mind unbidden, and they made Caroline grit her teeth. He had spent months charming her, wooing her, only to fall into bed with Hayley at the first chance he got. The traitorous bitch responsible for his Hybrid's rising up. And instead of getting her head ripped off, she got the full Hybrid experience.

And then there was this bartender. A few years older than Caroline, but very much human, with an innocent face, but a weary look in her eyes. Kol was certain she was important to Klaus, and that made her a target.

But Caroline wanted to know _why_. Did Klaus just have a thing for blondes?

"I've seen enough," Kol declared at last.

"I'm still not sure _what_ we saw," Caroline muttered it irritation.

"Ah, Darling, your jealousy is showing. Thinking of your jaunt in the forest and wondering if he's given the bartender the same ride?" Kol held out his hand and helped Caroline to her feet even as she glared at him.

"You're a pig," she stated.

"And you're a jealous shrew," Kol replied pleasantly. "And a hypocrite. You derided my brother, denied him. You claim you don't want him, yet you don't want anyone else to want him either, do you?"

"Fuck you," Caroline snarled at him, stalking away. Kol followed, catching up easily.

"Oh, Caroline, why don't you just fuck _him_?" Caroline's steps faltered at Kol's words, and she found herself listening with curiosity despite herself. "Kill the bitch bartender and screw out my brother's brains in her blood. What's stopping you?"

It was a good question. What was stopping her? It wasn't as though she were tied to anyone, not really. She and Enzo certainly had fun together, but they were hardly _dating_. She could find Klaus right now and remind him of everything he had left behind when he left _her_ behind.

Klaus, who was a daddy with Hayley and who had a Caroline 2.0 on tap in the form of a bartender. It made her grit her teeth.

It made her want to _hurt_ him.

"Or you could fuck my brains out instead."

Caroline's head darted around to Kol sharply at that suggestion. She thought to turn him down with a derisive snort and an acidic remark, but then she paused and thought about it. Klaus was possessive. About his family, about anything he saw as his. It would hurt on two levels.

She would be having sex with someone.

And it would be his brother, his brother who had always been the black sheep. Who had always disobeyed him.

His brother who made her uneasy.

Kol watched her with that wicked grin that promised pain or pleasure, and who knew which until he himself decided? He _was_ attractive, with his devil-may-care attitude, and Katherine had certainly had no complaints after sharing his bed if the pleased smirk she had worn when she'd left his room had been anything to go by.

"I don't jump from dick to dick," she said at last, watching him closely to see how the crass language affected him. He simply threw back his head and laughed.

"Are you worried about my brother's reaction, Caroline? Or Enzo's? He's half in love with you, you know. Our intrepid Lorenzo, who would follow you to hell if you asked. He wouldn't care if you fucked me. If it was Klaus? Well, then there might be some issues. But surely you've felt it?" Caroline found her back against the wall of a nearby building, Kol looming over her, despite not being that much taller than she was. There was something about him, that made him seem so much _bigger_ than he really was. "Felt the connection? We belong to each other, Caroline. You to me to Katherine to Enzo. We're bound by magic and blood in a twisted sort of family." He bent down, ran his teeth along the length of her neck, and Caroline gave a helpless mewl, tipping back her head to allow him better access. "I terrify you, yet you bare your neck to me. Because despite that uneasiness, you know you can trust me. Because you _feel_ it."

And she _did_ feel it. Just as she had felt connected to Enzo, to Katherine. Like they were flames and she was a moth drawn ever, dangerously close to them.

Like she _belonged_ to them, and them to her.

"What did the shades _do _to us?" she asked. "_Really_ do to us?"

"They made us the Apocalypse, Caroline," Kol replied, pulling away from her neck but bending down so his lips grazed hers as she spoke. "They made us every dark thought you ever had, every dark desire you ever hid. It's why you could kill Elena so easily. Why you haven't spared a thought for the Bennett girl since we left her behind. Because who cares about them? They are not us."

She probably should have felt guilt for the reminders, should have at least spared a thought for Bonnie, wondered if the Other Side had fallen yet. Instead, all she could think was that she needed more connection between them. She needed his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth. He was right – who cared about the dead bodies left behind?

_There were not _them_._

She tangled her hand in his hair, pulled his lips securely against hers and kissed him open-mouthed and hungry. The hands he had braced on either side of her head landed on her body, one on her hip, the other on her thigh, hiking her leg up so it wrapped around his legs. His tongue battled hers for dominance, and he pressed her against the wall almost painfully. Yet it still wasn't close enough.

"Damn, get her dude!"

Kol's head snapped up at the call, a pair of smirking frat boys watching them with lust glazed eyes. He glared at them, eyes flashing pale. Caroline glared at them and flashed away from Kol grabbing one and pulling him down for her infectious kiss.

No darkness rose in her.

She tore away with snarl, her fangs dropping, and her gaze snapped to Kol, because why the hell hadn't it worked.

"Lorenzo," Kol said silkily, flashing to the other frat boy who had been backing away in fear. "He hasn't yet opened the gates for the shadows."

Caroline cursed, because after all the time they had spent getting Enzo to master his ability, and she had forgotten that her own relied on it.

"Look, we don't want trouble," the boy in Caroline's arms whimpered, and she sneered at the show of weakness. This had been her once, she remembered. Weak and cowering in front of Damon.

God, she had been _pathetic._

But with the memories came the reminder that she didn't _need_ the darkness to deal with this quivering little _boy_. She hadn't bothered with blood since leaving Mystic Falls, hadn't needed to. Perhaps it was time to change that. Perhaps she didn't _need _blood.

That didn't mean she couldn't _want_ it.

"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me," she said to the boy, then she struck with her fangs, digging them deep into his neck. He let out a short scream, but her hand came up to cover his mouth, muffling his shrieks as she drained the life out of him. The blood hit her tongue, pure and _alive_ and God! Why had she ever thought blood bags were good enough? They were nothing compared to _this_. To the taste of live blood, flavored with fear and pain. Caroline let out a moan, because this was almost, _almost_ as good as sex.

Well, it was actually better than some of the sex she had gotten… so it was almost as good as _really_ good sex.

Kol watched her with eyes that were dark, not from the shadows, but simply with lust. He held his hand over the other frat boy's mouth, but he was to petrified to scream, instead just whimpering against the palm.

Caroline finished draining the boy and then snapped his neck to make sure that he was dead. Then she dropped his body, his importance already forgotten.

"Are you going to eat him?" she asked, quirking her head and smiling sweetly at the other boy who stared at her with wide, horrified eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and she reached out to stroke some away.

"I'm not that hungry," Kol replied. "Would you like him?"

When she dug her fangs in, that's when his screams began, muffled against her palm just as his friend's had been. And, like his friend, when his blood ran out, she snapped his neck and discarded him.

"Oh, I see the appeal now," Kol murmured, grabbing her hand and twirling her, before pulling her into his arms and spinning her in a dance Caroline wasn't familiar with down the street. "Yes, you _are_ spectacular, Darling."

"Kol?" she said.

"Hm?" he responded, coming to a halt as he raised his brows in question.

"Shut up" – she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him down for another hungry kiss.

"We need a private place," he stated between kisses, and Caroline hummed in agreement, because he already had her shirt torn down to the navel so he had better access to her breasts. He pulled his lips away from hers and looked around with frantic eyes. They paused when they landed on a building, a small store, and Caroline could hear just a single heartbeat from within. "I'll be but a second, Darling."

She pouted as he left her, because all these stops and starts were seriously interrupting the healthy haze of lust she had developed. Then he peeked his head out of the store and held his hand out to her.

"There's a lovely table in the back."

She let out a shriek of laughter when he swept her off her feet and carried her, rather hurriedly into the store.

**(KH)**

"You're brooding," Katherine said as they waited for one of her contacts. She had chosen a location just outside of the Quarter, wanting to avoid Klaus or Elijah's notice. "Are you afraid that Caroline and Kol are having sex?"

"Do you think they are?" Enzo asked, staring down into the coffee he had ordered for show.

"Likely," Katherine replied after a long moment of considering how to answer. She finally decided to go with the truth. "He scares her, but she's drawn to him. Like she's drawn to you and to me, and we're all drawn to each other. It's hell on the senses, and it's likely worse for her."

"Why do you say that?" Enzo tapped his fingers on the table and leaned back, waiting for Katherine's explanation.

"You, me, even Kol, we're sort of lone wolves. Trust no one, out for ourselves. But, Caroline Forbes? She needs people around her. She's basically the consummate extrovert. It's one of the reasons I could tolerate her. She just likes to make the world better."

"She did," Enzo pointed out automatically, because none of them particularly cared about the world now, did they? He wondered if he should be worried about that, but he couldn't' find it in himself to care. It was odd, this ability to be so very self-aware and simply… not give a damn.

"Fine, she'll want to make our world better. I like that more. She's not spread out as thin. Is she as good in bed as I think she would be? Because I always figured she'd be pretty good."

Enzo gave her a dry look and decided to actually drink some of the god awful coffee rather than answer.

"Spoilsport," Katherine muttered with a pout. "And here's the boy of the hour. Sit down and talk to me, Wilhelm."

"I shouldn't be here," the vampire, Wilhelm, muttered, taking the empty seat across from them. "_You_ shouldn't be here. In fact, you should be dead."

"As you can see, rumors of my demise were much exaggerated," Katherine leaned forward with a smirk. "Tell that to Klaus and Elijah? Well, let's just say that my friend here has been out of polite company for a while. He'll make it hurt. Right, Enzo?"

"Right you are," Enzo agreed, before lapsing back into silence, because he and Katherine had agreed he should go for silent and intimidating.

It seemed to be working.

"What do you want, Katherine?" Wilhelm asked at last, half-resigned and half-terrified, if the looks he kept darting at Enzo were anything to judge by.

"I want to know what the Originals have been up to, Wil," Katherine replied with one of her cat-like smirks. "Start with Klaus and the werewolf, and don't you dare leave any details out. Or Enzo here will show us all what he can do with a butter knife."

Wilhelm gulped and Enzo gave him a mirthless smile. He almost hoped that the man _did_ leave something out, or try to run, or any other number of foolish things. He wanted to _hurt_ something, so then he could distract himself from thoughts of Caroline and Kol.

Caroline _with_ Kol.

He had known it would happen, of course. The same way he also knew that at some point, he would probably fall into bed with Katherine. Hell, maybe even with Kol, if they could stop going at each other's throats long enough for such a thing. As Katherine had said, it was the draw between the four of them. It intertwined them, until knowing where one ended and the next began was difficult.

That didn't mean he couldn't be jealous.

Thank God it was only Kol.

**AN: Thank-you to Klarolinedrabbles from Tumblr who will be beta-ing this, Conversations with Myself, and my Klaroline/Carenzo/Caroline drabbles going forward. So hopefully you noticed an improvement in grammar and all that fun stuff.**

**So, we finally got the Koroline hook-up, which will carry over into next chapter. How do I know? Because I've already written 2000 words, and it's pretty much just Koroline smut. So you'll get that, and we'll also reach the events of the prologue. And chapter titles continue to come from Bastille songs, for anyone who was wondering. Thanks for all your feedback, and please let me know what you think of this as well!**


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